Nine Crimes
by samepaverge
Summary: In crimes of the heart, there is little justice, and absolutely none of mercy. Holmes/Watson Rated M for later chapters
1. Chapter 1  part 1

**A/N: **This is my first foray into Holmes/Watson fanfiction and the only one I have taken seriously. It is unbetae'd, as I am lonely and have no friends, and so all mistakes in grammar and historical factoids are entirely my own and unintentional. I tried my best to get things correctly, but sometimes I only made do with a hasty google search, especially with locations and such *hides*. As the title is 'Nine Crimes', I thought it rather clever to divide it into nine chapters, with an epilogue at the end.

**Nine Crimes**

**Chapter 1 Part 1**

The Doctor is gone again.

The switch was almost comical, my Watson fading into the London fog after dinner with only a nod in the way of acknowledgement. The clock on the mantelpiece had barely struck seven when he declined my offer of tobacco and brandy, making his way instead towards his long coat and his beaten hat, doffing both articles without a word.

"Out again, Watson?" I remarked, hoping to sound as offhanded as possible.

He turned, tying a blue woolen scarf about his neck. "Yes, dear fellow. I shan't be long," he replied, and was out before I could ask him where precisely in the whole of bloody London could he find better company than who was sitting right in front of him. I sat on the settee by the hearth, but the warmth simply would not do. I found myself migrating from the heat and into the cold, walking about until I stood beneath the bow window, the brandy all but forgotten. All manner of spirits are practically ineffectual, unless consumed in the presence of like-minded individuals, the uplift serving to transmute something noble from common inebriation, or something to that end I think. The cold has left a mist upon the window-pane and I brought my palm across it, turning it liquid to the touch.

Baker Street was quiet below, save for a brougham that occasionally rattled past, the clip-clop trotting of horses bringing momentary life to the stillness. Two men walked past the streetlamp right across 221B, the one on the left a groom and the other a workman of some kind, but I was too uninterested to deduce any farther than the obvious. I swept my view from one side to the other, rather hoping to catch sight of the Doctor, despite knowing that I was too late.

My breath was part despondency and part sanguine expectation, and it clouded the glass. The sensation was, of course, no longer novel. Many weeks it has been like this, Watson jaunting about in the evenings. He has been more spectre than human lately, coming down for breakfast only to stare at the coffee and toast, which precipitates a similar reaction from me, and we find ourselves so lacking in appetite that Mrs. Hudson had modified the fare to solely coffee, leaving with a disappointed turn of expression at her lodgers' strange, Bohemian requirements.

In the past I had expected my Doctor to be ever so engaged in our cases, never hesitating to lend a pair of eyes and ears, and the occasional hand to the revolver, asking questions that I may have mocked in their moment, but I knew to be of importance in leading me to the right angle of thought. In my desultory meanderings I have pictured him to be a piece of metal to a galvanizing apparatus, and while I believed it with all my heart, I have yet to admit to him something to that effect. Lately he seems to be wandering, both in body and mind. The other day, I had asked him to accompany me on a case, a strange affair involving two missing children in Lancashire, and with a hesitant nod he left with me on the 9:45 train. His eyes had the effect of glazing on a looking-glass, and he was quiet as a dormouse as he unaccustomedly took a seat across me.

I knew I might not meet any success in drawing him out, but his silence was creeping upon me, and I ached to hear his voice. "Watson," I said, looking upon his broken countenance, and had no inkling where I was going with myself. I could not even begin to fathom how it pains me to see him and feel as though he were about to split in half at any given moment, "Your-cravat is askew."

He lifted his eyes to me, twin orbs that used to be touched with an astonishing shade of blue that rivaled the expanse of sky beyond our window, how lovely they were, but now were more similar to a tepid pool of water in a washbasin. They were rimmed by dark lines beneath, the mark of a sleepless man, having witnessed him one too many times lounged on the settee in the middle of the night, awake but unmoving, any appeals for reason falling unheard on those ears. I always return to our bedroom, collect my nightgown about myself and lie curled upon the covers, my thoughts invariably turning over and over towards my friend.

When he merely looked down in a distracted manner towards the article mentioned, I leaned towards him, "Here, I shall-" I began, but he clutched at his cravat protectively and adjusted it himself.

"No, it's—there, fine," replied he, patting his cravat as if to assure me of its place. I withdrew my hand and placed it tentatively on my lap. He had resumed looking out the window, while I looked at the jacket and waistcoat that sagged about his thinning frame.

The rest of the day I spent in solving the case. I was successful, of course, but was rather disappointed with Watson's distant conduct. The mere discovery of a missing gemstone or other such trifling bit used to bring forth that rich laughter and applause that never failed to fill me with all that is lovely in this not-so feckless world, and were I to spend eternity I would love to do nothing but find an endless sundry of things for Dr. Watson. When we finally found the missing boys, who, as it turned out, had run away from their parents by way of hiding in a small abandoned cottage with a quarter mile from their homes, I happened to glance at the Doctor and saw his face devoid of any expression whatsoever. I have expected him to be in the least bit _responsive_ with what I supposed was a remarkably touching reuniting scene; the boys' parents clutching the children with relief and gratefulness. His eyes seemed to look at what was transpiring before him, and yet those pools remained as helplessly blank as they were on the train. His lips were turned in neither direction, and his whole aspect reverberated with such hateful neutrality that I could not bear looking at him; I turned away.

The following days I witnessed a gradual decline in my Watson's condition. He has not held a pen in days and when I asked him if he was planning to write up some of our later cases, for I was willing to lend him my indices, he turned to me with narrowed eyes and said that I never did think much of his writing, so why should he? As if the sitting room had opened upon the shadows, I felt something black and grim seize upon my chest and what I would have given to be able to hold that troubled head upon my chest and kiss those temples again, as I used to do when he needed soothing.

But I could do nothing but stand futilely against the door, for I knew the merest touch would most certainly send him running away.

And now the Doctor is gone again.

I knew without doubt where he goes; it was easy enough to discover without asking him. The flush on his face, the dark, caked mud mottled with ochre on the soles of his shoes, served as clues. I knew from the very first time, when he climbed up the seventeen steps and into our door. I was still at the sitting room, working upon the properties of a few thiosulfates. A guilty expression passed on his face when he saw me hunched over my chemistry workbench, so swift that it would pass unnoticed to those but the highly observant. I understood, as I have learned to, and withdrew the remark about to form on my lips. I nodded as he passed softly and wordlessly up the steps to his bedroom, and found that I had scarcely breathed until the door finally clicked shut. It hurt like a hundred needle pricks, to know that he preferred to pretend that I was ignorant of the matter. Had I been a lesser man, I would have been insulted by this circumvention, but I would be the last man to do such a thing, for he meant to me more than all of London and the universe combined. It would have been a wonderful thing, if I on my own could dispel the shadows that haunt the Doctor's brow. I stood up from the bench, already too distracted to take an interest in the trivial intricacies of organic chemistry, and was crestfallen upon the realisation that helping the Doctor was beyond the task of anyone living.

Watson returns to his ghosts, hoping to seek atonement from what is already beyond the bounds of human pardon. I could not feel any reproach for the man, for we are both haunted by the selfsame phantom. It haunts Watson, Watson haunts me, and we both waste away these days avoiding the truths that will once and for all break us free from our shared misery. He has the torn conscience of a man who has many things to hide, thus his aversion to writing, for his words have always rejoiced in the truth.

Were it possible to turn ourselves over to justice, Watson would have done so already, but the two of us know that no court would stand us trial. There would be no jury to pass judgment, twelve souls to look between us and call us guilty. There would be no Executioner to deliver the ultimate verdict of life or death, and yet we have no choice but to become nothing but fugitives.

In crimes of the heart, there is little justice, and absolutely none of mercy.


	2. Chapter 1  part 2

_One Year Ago _

I would not count Lestrade amongst the most perceptive of people, for that company is only reserved for a good ten or so men in the whole of London, including myself, but I sometimes could almost congratulate him in knowing exactly what would lure the frantic interests of a madcap consulting detective. Pickled oysters and an intriguing new case.

The idea of luncheon with the Inspector wasn't quite thrilling, but not entirely unwelcome either, so I appeared at Gordon's near Haymarket, where I found the Inspector, as dark-haired, as rat-faced and dapper as ever, dressed in a dark brown jacket and pinstriped trousers of the same color, with a glass of ale wrapped between his bony fingers.

He stood up to shake my hand, "Morning, Mr. Holmes," said he with a small smile, "glad you could come, though I am frankly surprised. Figured folks like you would pick Dolly's instead," he continued, glancing around the vicinity of the chop house. The company was certainly of a rougher sort, and the wooden tables not covered with white linen. Thin-lipped waiters bustling about were also absent, to be replaced by Gordon himself, corpulent and beady-eyed, and his son, who was quite the opposite of the family patriarch, gangly and stooping as he went from one table to another. The place goes louder than usual with the occasional row, and was always heavy with the smell of cheap tobacco.

I took the seat across Lestrade, fingers steepled between my lips, "Dolly's, The Grand—hah!" I remarked, "And the others forming the collective coterie frequented by these aristocratic _gourmandistes_. Nothing as insipid and dull and boring. No, no-to an observer of human behavior, there is no better place than here," I continued, pointing to the table filled with raucous laughter, "at the true heart of the City." I'd rather not be in the company of gentility, with their tiresome conversation and less-than-creative pursuits, if you please. There is rarely anything genuine that occurs on the region between their ears.

Lestrade seemed knotted in thought, and then a light smile broke upon his features, "I don't care what the other boys at the Yard say about you, Mister Holmes, but I believe in your methods. They seem to never have led you astray," he answered, sipping the final dregs of ale from his glass.

"You seem downright agreeable today, Lestrade," I quipped, and he lifted an eyebrow in disbelief, "but I have had my share of erroneous deductions, to be honest. Rather difficult way of learning, but it is only a fool who makes the same mistake twice. Now, Inspector," I beckoned young Gordon who was a table away from us, "I believe we are in need of refreshment. You can tell me about this case of yours by and by."

Of course, truth was I was only looking for a diversion, I knew it would be too much to ask but I hoped said diversion would be intellectually stimulating in the least. Allow me to illustrate: a perfumer would distinguish between top, middle and base notes when composing a fragrance using a collection of aroma compounds and essential oils, one over the other so as to create the scent most pleasing to senses. The analogy is most appropriate to my little quest for distractions. The top note: a case from Inspector Lestrade, hopefully engaging; the middle note—on the other hand, do let us forget about this line of thought; I am feeling dumber by the moment.

The fare was most delightful; we had pickled oysters and mutton chops, along with some pheasant pie Lestrade brought, "by the missus", he said, and I was pleasantly surprised with how delicious it was. A bit coarse, but delicious.

I took the bottle of port and poured another glassful, for I was feeling rather baleful that day, "Now, Inspector," said I, "your telegram hinted at a 'most puzzling case'. Would it have anything to do with the death of young Lord Russell at Windethorpe Heath?"

Lestrade dropped his knife and looked so gravely upon me. He brought his hands together, leaned towards me and peeked askance at the other patrons, as if the clientele here were interested in the scandals that blight the English gentry. That and humans could fly.

"Now how could you possibly know about that?" whispered Lestrade, piteously querulous, tbe poor man. Of course I knew. My previous client, a rosy, albeit frivolous young lady was connected with some of the acquaintances of Lady Russell, and so the information there was passed from lip to ear until everyone was satisfied. How I came about the facts, on the other hand, was entirely the fault of said young lady, who could scarce tell her story without feeling the urge to digress on some needless detail or another, before getting to the point. She had pinched her mother's diamond necklace for a dance, and had unwittingly misplaced it, and if her mother returns from the country to find out that the necklace was gone, her own neck 'would surely be wrung', as it were. Young Lord Russell, she had not failed to mention, was 'trop mysterieux, the beau of the evening' and that 'it was so unfortunate, that he died so young.'

I flung my wrist in dismissal, "How I knew is inconsequential. Do you have any information? What was the cause of death?"

"We have yet to find out," he replied, and I made sure that my disappointment did not pass unnoticed, "we don't all have your tricks Mr. Holmes. The Yard was only informed yesterday, and the constabulary at Coventry had been on the case only two days ago. However, we know that young Lord Russell was the chosen heir by his father, and their estate had grown considerably after their family had made some profitable business in East India."

So far, the Inspector's account was adding up to nothing, "Wait," I said, "didn't Lord Russell have another son? An elder one, name of Avery, I remember that he has made a name for himself in the shipbuilding and steel business."

"Does he?" replied Lestrade, "then he is a wealthy man."

"Obscenely wealthy," I assented, "Old riches and new combined. Surely enough to corrupt any man, but Lord Avery Russell has risen from his kind. Hardly a scratch to his name and in the poor-houses of Whitechapel his name is mentioned with a reverence comparable to Providence itself. He has also made sizeable contributions to charitable institutions."

"The fellow must be a saint!" chided Lestrade. I knew he saw the importance of this information, but the further implications I expected him to blind of. The elder brother is a paragon of goodness, doling his riches out by the handful, and is successful in his ventures. The only way the younger brother could be heir to the estate is by the elder's outright refusal to be named in their father's will, something a man without the organ of Avarice could easily accomplish.

But all this information, though useful, is still wanting, "You could have easily taken this case, Lestrade," said I, "what truly brought you to me? The case is hardly of interest, a rich young man dead, cause unknown, et cetera, I have better things to do," I really do not. Top note, if you recall earlier.

"I could certainly have!" cried Lestrade, "Lord knows why they have come to us in the first place, only to request your aid as well. I do not even know how the Russells knew about you. The PC just walked up to me and said, 'They also request that you call a Mr. Sherlock Holmes as well, Inspector. Lady Russell said he would be able to help,' as if I needed assistance from an amateur, albeit a brilliant one." His dourness would have annoyed me, but that was certainly a _bon mot_ from the Inspector, who may have had one too many glasses of port; I laughed.

"Well, Lestrade," I sighed, "interesting, but not enough to make me leave London for Coventry, which I suppose is what the Russells are expecting," He nodded, a little too slowly. By Jove, the man shouldn't have any alcohol at Day. I emptied the remaining port into my glass. "But if you can send me a telegram containing more details, as many as you can, if you please, then I may decide whether this is worth a trip after all. No later than this evening, preferably." The due time is nothing but a front to compel them into action, of course, I have nothing waiting for me that evening but the settee, the syringe and the Stradivarius. I cannot have any more of the lassitude brought by the Second, and I am close to making enemies with the Third. The settee is my remaining friend; I cannot bear to lose that as well. I needed a case, badly, desperately, urgently. I had to get out of London; Coventry could possibly be heaven as of this moment.

Lestrade seemed to be taking it rather well, "Fair enough, Mr. Holmes," said he, "I know you take nothing but the most perplexing of cases. I only hope it is something ghastly, for your sake," and he stood up to take the coat draped behind his chair.

I smiled and stood up as well. "Peplexing, yes. Ghastly?" I furrowed my brow as if in deep thought, "Appreciated, but unexpected," I said, and it brought a twitch of smile from the Inspector.

We had split the fee and stepped out together into Haymarket, "Mr. Holmes," said Lestrade, shaking my hand, "it was a pleasure. I've always thought you were a haughty fellow through and through. I frankly was not eager with the prospect of lunch, but you're a pleasant man enough."

I chuckled, at his honesty more than anything else, "Everything becomes pleasing after enough exposure," I remarked. I will club him if he even mentions the prospect of friendship. I was cordial, by God, but I was not about to go around attending plays with him. "I bid leave, Inspector, good day to you."

"Good day to you too," he answered, and I watched him turn and make his way, until his rounded shoulders and quick step disappeared in the tide of the crowd.


	3. Chapter 1  part 3

It was half past two in the afternoon, and I stood at vast Baker Street in front of 221B, unmoving. The worn gray façade had always been welcoming to me, and I looked up at the bow window that has been my favourite post in the sitting room. The curtains were drawn, and it would be impossible to know what or _who_ was inside. With a thin breath, I withdrew the telegram from my pocket for the umpteenth time. The white paper has been folded several times until it was the size of a match-box:

Holmes (it ran)

Will stop by for a visit tomorrow STOP Around half past one STOP

Are you at 221B by then QUERY Please be if not reply immediately STOP

Mary is coming as well FINAL STOP

JW

I should have said that I had an appointment with Lestrade, but then the meeting with the Inspector was planned only to-day. A thousand excuses were right at my fingertips and I failed to use any of them! My hesitation to act has brought me to this predicament, damn it all. But it was an hour past the assigned time; I could be sufficiently late that they bid farewell to Mrs. Hudson and left. Pre-cise-ly. I have nothing to be anxious about.

The hall was empty as usual; Mrs. Hudson was upstairs in all likelihood as well. I strained my ears and heard nothing moving about from the rooms upstairs. Good. I placed a hand against the wooden railing and took one of the seventeen steps, hearing it creak under my weight. Two. Three. Four. At the tenth step, I heard strains of laughter from above, a rich masculine laugh and a thin feminine one. Sod it; they were still there! I _knew _I shouldn't have come back until after dark. Fool! Blood rushed to my head in panic; I turned, and in my haste, the cane in my hand hit the railing, and it fell with a loud clatter on the steps.

The laughter died, and a quiet hush befell. They must've heard the blasted thing fall, and I only had a few seconds to make a quick escape. I took two steps at a time, double time, without caring about the noise I made; it was too late for that.

I leapt to the bottommost step, and almost tripped on Mrs. Hudson's carpet had I not gripped the handrail in time. I made a line for the walnut door and had opened it a quarter of an inch when I heard a voice from the top of the stairway.

"Mr. Holmes?" Mrs. Hudson said in strident tones, "Is that you down there?"

I heaved a breath and closed the door in resignation. "Ah, Mrs. Hudson, as lovely as ever. Yes, it's me, just arrived," said I in my most charming smile. I could be pleasing with the female kind of our species if I needed to, _needed_ being the operative term; it is a dangerous habit to cultivate.

Mrs. Hudson beamed at me as a mother does to her unruly but favourite son, her rounded cheeks becoming flushed, "Now, don't use that one on me," she insisted, wagging a finger at me, "I'm not the slip of a thing I once was. Did you happen to hear a clatter? I thought I heard it right here."

"No, I don't believe I did. All was quiet when I entered," I lied.

"Well, never you mind, young man," said she, wrapping her hands about her white apron, "The Doctor and his wife are up here, waiting for you. They've been here for an hour or so."

I dragged my feet up the steps, all my dread rising up in one massive tumult that rolled within my chest. The seventeen steps felt like a thousand, and my breathing had gone shallow when I reached the top. When I made no move to enter the sitting room, Mrs. Hudson took me by the arm and led me inside.

"I told them you had gone away on a meeting with the Inspector," said Mrs. Hudson. Long-suffering landlady, indeed. I swallowed the urge to grab the revolver from the right-hand drawer and pillage these walls in front of her. "But the Doctor here won't stand for it. 'We'll wait right here' he says, 'I'm sure he will be back soon enough,' so's I thought I should show them right in, and—why Mr. Holmes, you've gone white as ash."

"Yes, thank you _Mrs. Hudson_, Don't worry," said I exaggeratedly, "It is nothing but this vile London weather, which the Doctor and the Missus have been fortunate enough to avoid," I nodded towards the pair standing by the settee. "Do you happen to have some tea, Mrs. Hudson? Our guests must be parched."

Mrs. Hudson nodded, "I'll come right up with some tea and biscuits then, you three sit down and have a nice chat. So lovely to meet you after a long time, Doctor," and she finally bustled out of the room, closing it at her wake.

Lovely, indeed. This has been a miserable failure, what use are my skills at dodging and gaolbreak if I can't even apply it when necessary? It did not matter if there was one exit in this room or fifty; I was trapped.

"Good afternoon, Watson," said I, "How wonderful to see you at Baker Street once more." I smiled and offered a hand to him. He took it well enough, and I wrapped my fingers on his warm ones, feeling a delightful shiver creep upon my back. Unnerving, these simple touches; how I needed and missed them. "You are as hale as ever," I continued.

By hale of course I meant trim and handsome. Nothing had changed at all: the same dishwater blond hair parted lovingly to the side, the same intense cerulean blue eyes, the cheekbones I someday would love to brush lightly with my fingers, the ample lips that—are of course skilled in the art of—of _speech_, for he can be a loquacious fellow sometimes—who am I fooling? I wanted his sweet mouth around my prick. There's a good honest fellow. Blast! This is why I did not want to meet them in the first place. Watson still had that rakish smile, which he was displaying in all its glory upon me, dear Lord.

I turned to Mrs. Watson. No, I cannot bear to call her that, she is henceforth Mary in my mind. "And you," said I, bowing to her slightly, "I trust you have more than recovered from our little adventure—Mrs. Watson." I was expecting to acid bubble forth from my lips, but apparently the name was no curse.

Mary beamed at me, the honest, pleasant smile of a woman. She was what people would call _striking_, but without the frippery of youth or the pretense of old age. Her brown hair was twisted neatly in a bun, and her dress was of a somber shade of claret that fell to the floor just so. Her hands were enveloped in a pair of white lace gloves, which she now twisted about her wrists in a fit of slight discomfiture. "Yes, Mr. Holmes, quite," she intoned, "They had pleasant weather in Cornwall and it is enough respite from the hubbub of the City."

I made my way towards the small clutter table in the corner when I found they remained standing, "Oh, propriety! I seem to have forgotten my manners," I gestured towards the seat, "do have a seat, put a leg up, et cetera." It was unsettling how they looked upon this place as strangers, especially my dear Watson.

There was a timid knock on the door and a moment later Mrs. Hudson had come in with a tray for afternoon tea. I cleared a spot amidst the piles of documents and newspapers to make way.

"Anything else you'll be needing?" said Mrs. Hudson, setting down the tray. I replied to the negative, and told her we would be serving ourselves.

"So Holmes," Watson finally spoke, "you seem to be doing well for yourself." He tilted his head to the side, a habit of his when he is saying something that is in fact a question.

Why wouldn't I do well for myself? Impossible man. "Yes, I have been rather busy. In fact I had luncheon with Lestrade-"

"With the Inspector?" asked Watson, "I thought you couldn't stand the man."

"Lestrade mellows down once you spend some time in his company, but a drink seems to catalyze the desired effect," I explained. "He had a case for me, and I am going to take it once more information is sent in. Hardly any time for leisure-"

"Of any kind?"

I haven't taken any cocaine for almost a month, confound it. "Of any kind," I replied. "I have enough riddles to whet the most voracious of intellectual appetites." I steepled my fingertips beneath my chin. "But trifles, trifles. What of Lizard Point? I heard it is excellent this time of year."

Mary gave a start. "Why Mr. Holmes," said she, "You knew where we went? Isn't that bad luck? But I suppose, you being you, we wouldn't have a choice," and she laughed.

It was a wild guess, of course. Watson gave me a knowing smile, "Lizard Point is a popular destination for honeymooners," he said to Mary, "I doubt he'll be able to guess which hotel we stayed in, though."

I chuckled, but it sounded brittle to my ears. "That is sadly beyond my powers," I admitted.

Watson stood up and made his way to the tea tray, "The trip was pleasant enough, except when the coachman misheard 'The Perch Haven' and took us to-"

"'Birch Haven'", continued Mary, "and the couple who were with us on the coach and argued all the way to the Lighthouse. She had such a sour look on her face, 'I told you we should not have checked in 'The Otter Lea', twenty years we have been there, the service just keeps getting worse and worse, that son of his isn't fit for the inkeeping business, I tell you,' she said. And on and on she went."

Watson held a cup of tea, "But Lizard Point was lovely; the sea air does wonders to one's constitution," he intoned sagely, "You might want to visit there sometime, Holmes. I've no doubt your over-exertions will eventually take toll on you. It is a good place for relaxation."

"Dear fellow, you know how I feel about recreation, especially the ones that take me away from the City. I cannot be away from London at any protracted amount of time; it generates excitement and stimulation among the criminal classes. For me there remains the settee and the Stradivarius, faithful as ever." Hear: they do not woo clients, marry and leave me fiddling in the dark at midnight. I meant that in both senses of the word.

A touch of concern crossed Mary's face, "That is very sad to hear Mr. Holmes," she admitted. "You know you are always welcome to us at Paddington. Visit as often as you like."

And I shall throw myself to the lions! I will do no such thing. "A lovely offer, Mrs. Watson, I shall remember that when time permits," I said, while crossing it in my good Mother's grave that time will never, _ever _permit.

I glanced at Watson and saw him standing over the mahogany desk, looking at my correspondences. He picked each one by one and started shuffling them around, no doubt sorting them by date. I smiled inwardly; some habits do die hard. That particular one grew out of a desire to distract himself when writing. Watson would hit a rough spot in his prose, and would spend minutes staring at nothing in particular. He would be seated on that desk right there, now occupied by the retorts that I brought from Bart's the other day. He would invariably notice what a sorry mess the sitting room was and proceed to pick up the old newspapers, putting them to rights. Still dissatisfied, Watson would sort anything he could get his hands on.

Of course, those were Watson's more innocuous moments. Once I actually found him sprawled on his stomach on the bearskin rug, still in his waistcoat and trousers, and his hair positively chaotic. I asked him what he was doing, he said he was 'attempting to find the most conducive writing position' and he resumed scribbling. I must have looked like a fool, for I was unable to retract my gaze from him several times that night.

Nothing precedes, though, that one instance when I stepped out of the sitting room and saw him without any scrap of clothing on his back. His trousers, mercifully enough, were still on. It was in the heat of noon, I recall, of one of the worst summers I have ever experienced. He must have thought me asleep, for I remained in my bedroom all morning, sweating the heat out. Watson was turned away from me, hunched over his desk, writing furiously. I could not help but gaze intently as his muscles flexed and relaxed at the grip of his pen. Those shoulder blades that moved fluidly beneath skin were a proof of the Divine. I wondered at His Goodness, and His purpose as to why this Celestial Being has been brought to the unworthy presence of a mere mortal such as I.

His back was a country unto itself, with its sinews under a plane of flesh that curved gently at the midline. Underneath I knew it hid strength, raw and powerful. I am sure he could name all its cities from memory. A bead of sweat rolled from his neck, making its way towards the slope of his shoulder where all was damp with oil and salt and water. I began to hear a faint buzz that surrounded the sitting room, enclosing me and the glory that was his body. I did not know what it was until it broke out into Handel's Hallelujah Chorus.

Watson suddenly looked up, deep in thought, and scratched at his moustache in the most endearing manner. I broke from my reverie and was filled with panic, thinking he might turn and we would be trapped in the social tortures of impropriety and off the cuff excuses. It would be trickier in my case for I was the one who heard that blasted chorus while gaping at his naked back! I slipped back into the room and closed the door as quietly as I could, and spent the next few minutes teaching myself to take even breaths and willing my heart to stop pounding like so. The next few days we were blessed with flashes of heavy rain, and my friend was no longer compelled to repeat that singular feat; I schooled myself to stop expecting it.

He always waxed eagerly on my habits. A bloodhound on a trail, he thoughtfully writes in those sensationalist accounts of his, legs drawn up, a pipe between the lips, the steepled fingertips. One of those rare evenings when Watson was in the mood to dine in his club at, I chanced upon the manuscript he promised me after the Jefferson Hope case. People do not surprise me often; it was easy to deduce the motives hidden behind the _lexis and kinesics_ of common man, but I have realised, as I held the sheaf of foolscap in my hands, that John Watson did not belong to their class.

I have been oft told that I was a particularly self-absorbed kind of fellow, but it was odd to see oneself brought into close study. That he had apportioned a section of his manuscript entirely to the description of my physical appearance sent bolts of heat throughout my body:

'His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination. His hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments.'

I pushed the blighted passage away, only to pick it up and read it once more, with my hand pressed tightly upon my lips. There was a stirring between my stomach and throat, a constriction where something tried to struggle free. It was similar to gazing at the looking glass for the first time, but from the pen of one whom I—whom I held in high esteem, it was as though he had caressed each separate place with a brush of his fingers.

I went to my bedroom and espied myself on the mirror near the washstand. I grew up without thinking about appearances; I was spare in build, with the requisite quantity of angles that jutted here and there and that was that. I beheld my reflection and attempted to see what Watson saw. Was it truly there? Sharpness of eye, a determined chin; I never thought my nose was decisive. My hands; I held them to the light. He was right; they were stained by iodine compounds and scarred by acid; my nails were bitten to the quick for I have acquired the deplorable habit ever since I shared rooms with him. _Delicacy of touch. _I kept turning the phrase in my mind. He noticed that I had the aforementioned characteristic. Noticing requires observation, keenness, intent. He was looking at me while I was obviously occupied-

No, John Watson could not have possibly taken advantage of my lack of self-consciousness to take notes of my behaviour. It would be most unseemly. I replaced the manuscript, careful to return it the way it was. But the more I strove to forget the passage, the more vivid it grew in my memory until it permanently took root. Now I could not look at my hands without thinking of that phrase: _Delicacy of touch_.

As I did at this moment. "Holmes," A voice intruded, "is something wrong? You look a bit out of sorts." I glanced upward and saw Watson looking at me with a quizzical brow.

I managed to draw a smile. "Nothing at all. I just happened to recall a _delicate_ matter," I replied.

"Anything I know?" he asked.

I shook my head. "You wouldn't; it was before we had met." I lied. I needed to steer the conversation to safer waters, lest he make his inquiries that sometimes led straight to the heart of the matter. "How has your writing been? Any more tales of overwrought clients and romantic reprobates to indulge your audience with?"

"Well, this is new," said Watson slyly. "I never knew you gave a thought to your chronicles save with a scoff and a sneer."

"Oh, bosh. Of course I take interest, and do refrain from calling them 'chronicles', for it seems to make it rather larger than it is. I am but a consulting detective, plying my trade for pay and for pleasure," I demurred.

It was enough to coax a laugh from Watson and a smile from Mary. "'Memoirs', then?" The lady proffered.

"That makes it so much worse;" I said gravely, "for it makes me seem rather dead."

Watson gripped the back of the settee. "I'm afraid I haven't the time to write," he admitted. "There were so many preparations to make: the wedding, the trip to Cornwall," said Watson with a faraway look in his eyes, "and now that we've returned to London, Mary and I still have to tidy up the place in Paddington. It was quite a strange affair," he turned to Mary. "Do you remember: three days before our wedding? I was looking over the surgery, when you came by. Before that I had a man come up to me and say that he had a nice offer to make:

'You are Dr. Watson?' said the man. He had a gruff voice and the strangest expression; corpulent, but he carried it with such dignity. The man looked narrowly at me over that beak-like nose of his, but I was sure he meant no harm.

His character intrigued me so much that I decided to find out what he was on about. 'Yes, how may I help you?' I said, putting the medical journals in a heap on the desk.

'Quite the opposite, my good man, it seems that _I _am the one who could.' He perambulated the room where I was setting up my surgery, peering about the boxes and examining the bookshelf by the window; he seemed fascinated with its lacquered finish. 'You are getting married by three days from now to a Miss Mary Morstan,' he stated, without taking his eyes away from the cherry wood bookcase. 'It has come to my notice that you have yet to find a new apartment for yourself and the lady.'

I was more than surprised with this fellow's boldness. 'Now, sir, I mean no disrespect but I have no idea as to your name and your intent. I am in no position to be taking advice from you, and you are in no position to give them,' I said.

'Oh, of course,' he replied. 'Do pardon my intrusion, but I assure you that my intent is nothing more than good will,' he gave a short pause, 'and brotherly concern.'

'And your name?'

'Is entirely irrelevant to the matter at hand, which is new lodgings,' he insisted.

I had no idea who this fellow was, but he had a trustworthy air about him. He had not done anything that was out of the ordinary, save keep his name private. He had been civil and gentlemanly; I chose to give him the benefit of the doubt, 'Go on,' I said.

He crossed the room and made for the easy chair before the desk, removing the Gladstone bag and setting it on the carpeted floor. 'You will excuse me,' said he, sitting down and releasing a sigh of relief, 'for I cannot bear to be perfectly vertical at any prolonged period of time. It exhausts me.' I took a seat behind the desk and waited for what he had to say. 'I know a place in Paddington, or rather,' he paused and corrected himself, 'I know a gentleman who owns a place in Paddington, and has been meaning to let it at a most reasonable price.'

'Which is how much exactly?' I asked.

'That can be arranged. But certainly at a value lower than on those,' he lingered and pointed on the clippings on my desk, 'advertisements.'

'How would you know if I wanted the place; I do not even know where it is or what it looks like,' I countered.

'Oh, that is no problem, Doctor, for I know it would suit you very well. You are a sensible man, practical, and yet a bit on the artistic side, tell me, which poison have you picked?'

'Literature—I do a bit of writing.'

'Ah, an imaginative fellow then. I never could understand artists; they seem to be reading another page entirely. I know a musician personally, a most unsavory chap. Stark raving mad. He ought to be wrapped up and shipped off to Bedlam,' he said. 'But you are unlike him, yes, I never could understand _why_,' he paused, and looked as if he were about to pass in a sort of daze when he pulled himself out of it. 'Hum, I will describe the apartment to you then, for I have been there a couple or so times and that is how I know of which I speak: Turkish carpeting, Doctor, on the hall and the parlour, except on the kitchen, for there it is all oil-cloths. Modest mahogany furniture inside the sitting room, nothing ostentatious, you see, with a small area set aside for a library. The front and back parlours could of course be merged by the large folding-doors between them. Upstairs are two bedrooms, four-posters, wash-stands and so on. On the third level are the nursery and the servant's quarters, and on the fourth, a couple of low garrets, for the passing guest. Oak flooring, gas, piping, hot water, everything a new family needs. Of course for the exact state of each you would have to inquire with the landlord and his surveyor.'

The fellow broke off and seemed to await my reaction, his hands clasped to his lips. I was taken aback by his zeal in offering unwarranted guidance and still a little distrustful.

'Have you a solicitor?' He asked. I replied to the negative and he said I did not need one, for if I were to take the apartment, and he was sure I would, then solicitor's fees would only be another extra cost on my pocket-book. I told him that I would take his word into account.

'It is a good place, Doctor,' he assured. 'I am acquainted with the previous tenant and am certain he has kept the place in good order. The landlord is a thoroughly reliable fellow.'

He seemed so intent on gaining my trust. 'I appreciate your help, but I couldn't help but wonder why precisely you are doing so,' I replied.

'So that you would not fall into the bad end of a deal,' he added. 'You might get into a contract that you eventually will regret. I do not want that to happen.'

'But you do not even know me,' I insisted. 'Have we met at Bart's?'

He looked at me with a beady eye. 'To the latter: no; to the former: yes. Very, very well.' he said oddly. He stood up, straightening his great coat and adjusting his enormous figure within.

The man appeared to be leaving, but I still had so many questions to ask. 'That is it?' I said.

He turned to me with a smile that puffed his fleshy cheeks. 'Precisely so, Doctor,' he answered. He pulled a gold watch from his pocket and shook his head. 'Dear me, look at the time. I have several more appointments lined up for the day, and I shall now be late to all of them. Tardiness is so unbecoming.' He directed his solemn expression away from me. 'I hope you will consider my offer, Doctor. You already know that I require nothing in exchange. You may take up the place or simply search for another one.'

'But how will I notify you?' I asked.

The fellow fixed me with a piercing eye, his face rather sharp and shrewd in its aspect. His voice came out, a low rumble from his chest. 'Oh, there is no need. _I will know.' _Then he suddenly broke into a smile that shook me inwardly.

The man tipped his hat to me as he was about to pass the door. 'By the way,' he said. 'Congratulations on your forthcoming nuptials, Doctor. Please, have the best of my wishes, and regards to the lovely Miss Morstan.' Then he was gone.

I sank back to the easy chair to ponder over the mysterious gentleman and the more mysterious proposition he presented when I glanced over to my desk and saw that he had surreptitiously left a card."

"What did it say?" I asked Watson. I harbored a fear that the fiend might have revealed his identity to the Doctor after all. When I say he is a fiend, it was not because of the character that Watson presented, but the fact that I knew exactly who it was.

"I have it right here," Watson replied. He pulled a card from his breast pocket and passed it on to me.

It was made of thick cardboard, cream in color and simple in style. At the very center, it said MR. ESHTON HILBERT, in bold, unadorned script. Below it was an address: 82 Inverness Terrace, Bayswater, Paddington. "You went to this address and met Mr. Hilbert," I said, which prompted a nod from Watson. "You obviously found him to be an upright sort of fellow and his terms were more than agreeable. You asked him if he knew the stranger who led you to him."

"Correct," Watson replied, "and then he said the queerest thing: 'A stranger, eh? Had one the other day come up to me and say that he knew someone who was looking for lodgings, a straight feller who'd be willing to take this place up. Chap even insisted on taking my card. I gave it to him of course; he seemed trustworthy 'nough.'

'Did you catch his name?' I asked.

'I did ask him. Several times, in fact. Feller just keeps on shakin' his head and saying it ain't important. I let him keep it as he liked, and just like that, he left,'" Watson said.

Mary turned to her husband. "What a strange episode," said she. "But rather serendipitous."

"Indeed it is," Watson replied.

"We must meet this mystery benefactor," said she, "So we could properly thank him, even though his methods seem rather unorthodox and unfriendly."

"That has crossed my mind several times," Watson said, "but I haven't seen hide nor hair of him since. He seems to have disappeared completely."

I could think of nothing in reply. Silence befell us for some minutes. Watson had taken to his tea, I had taken to looking surreptitiously at him, and Miss Morstan had taken to looking at the clock on the mantelpiece and fidgeting on the sofa. It took her moments to finally say what it is that was bothering her.

"John," said she, taking her husband's arm. "I am terribly sorry, but Eliza could be waiting for me at Haymarket right at this moment."

Watson raised his eyebrows and his mouth fell slightly open in recall. "Oh yes, yes!" said he, covering her hand with his, "How could it have slipped from my mind, I do not know. Well yes, dear, it would not be agreeable to keep her waiting."

. "Gentlemen, I'm afraid I have to bow out for now," she said, putting on her purple twill coat. "It is so wonderful to see you again Mister Holmes, I hope we could spend more time together," she paused. "John, will you be back before dinner?" Watson nodded. "Then I shall tell the cook. Goodbye John, Mr. Holmes."

I gave her a small bow of acknowledgment. "Mrs. Watson," I replied. The door clicked shut and Mary was gone.


	4. Chapter 1  part 4

I lifted an eyebrow. "Well," I said to nothing in particular.

Watson noticed my questioning look. "A schoolgirl friend of hers from Lowell wanted to meet her, Elizabeth Rogers. Just arrived from the United States after a three year sojourn in the country where she promptly fell in love and married a prospector from the California gold fields. They are going to Covent-garden Market for some coffee," Watson explained.

"Obviously a habit Miss Rogers acquired from America," I added.

The Doctor gave a distracted 'Hum' and a slight nod, and he lay back further into the settee, stretching his legs and putting both hands behind his head. His blue eyes wandered around the room, the solemn gaze passing me a moment and finally resting on the floor.

I rose from the chair by the fireside, "Would you like some brandy?" I offered.

"Yes, please," he replied, eyes still bent on the carpet.

I went to the low cabinet and poured a glass of brandy from the decanter. "There is some tobacco on the old Persian slipper, if you like," I said.

"No," Watson said. "That is, I brought some cigarettes." He pulled a silver cigarette case from his pocket. It was of a different style than the one he usually used, slightly wider and with a different design embossed on the cover.

"What happened to the old one?" I asked, referring to the plain silver case with the engraving within. The one I bought in a rare fit of magnanimity after one of our minor investigations. There was no genuine reason why I did it; I simply needed to give everything I had to the man, even if I knew he would refuse.

He would accept a cigarette case, though, in the name of blasted camaraderie. Those were the times when if John Watson were to tell Sherlock Holmes to jump off Westminster Bridge and onto the Thames he would have done so merrily.

He would do it still, and with equal merriment.

"I left it at the surgery," he said, pulling a cigarette and placing it between his lips. "This one is from Mary's father," he mumbled.

I handed him the snifter. "It's beautiful," I said, pulling my matchbook from my trouser pocket. "Here, let me-" I pulled a match and struck it on the side surface, the instant reaction between the phosphorous and chlorate producing a small flame. Watson placed both hands on the settee, tilting his chin to me and I brought the flame to the tip of his cigarette, which began to glow red from the heat.

I kept my eyes fixed on the match, but I could feel his gaze directed to my face. I ventured to look at him, and when I did, his eyes flicked away to the side and he pulled away from the fire. I shook the match, and watched it as the smoke rose in whorls.

"Thank you," he said.

I migrated to the bow window, watching the flurry on the street below. The rest of all life is so distant, it seems, when the whole world is perched upon my settee, carelessly smoking a cigarette.

"How does married life suit you?" I asked, lighting my own pipe. I looked at him and saw his back turned to me. I returned my gaze to the street.

"This place seems different," Watson mused, "and yet nothing's changed." He seemed to pause, and I thought he did not hear my question when he said, quietly, "I do not know."

"And your practice? Never mind, I am sure it would do well, Doctor," said I. "I have all confidence in your medical abilities."

"There, you moved your chemistry table," he pointed. "It is now against the window."

"You are better, now, I think, and I suppose your gambling proclivities would soon fade-"

"And the crystal cabinet, you pushed it to the wall-"

"-Now that you have a family to support-"

"What else has changed?"

What else has changed? _You have changed._ You and everything about you; I do not know you. There, by the table where your stack of medical journals used to be are now in a box at some address in Paddington. There, over the desk where your manuscript and pens used to be, now gone. There, at the book case where your yellow-backed novels were, now in a parlour where it doesn't belong. There, at the space where the Colonel's portrait used to hang, now remains empty.

Were anyone to view these rooms, they would hardly see anything missing, there still is the mass of papers stacked by the odd corner, the chemistry set, the dining table. The morning light still slants by the window in the same way. That gasjet by the bookcase still sputters when you twist it too much.

There was so little of you in these rooms, my dear Watson, so I held on to each of them as you would fragile bone china. It was your things that made me understand the meaning of _home_.

You took the word when you left, threw it in the trunk along with your journals and your novels and your hat that used to tell me you were here.

I woke up that day and sat up in panic; I did not know where I was.

I drew air from my pipe, filling my lungs with a draught of tobacco and smoke, wondering how it would feel to drown in simply air. "Changed?" I repeated. "Oh, I don't know Watson. You know I hardly notice these things. Excepting the things you have mentioned, which I did simply to maximise the space, I have done nothing else," I paused and released a breath of smoke. "I cannot see the difference."

Watson smiled, but his eyes remained cheerless. "That is very distinct of you, you know," he said. "I suppose you never see sentimental value in anything you have."

"You are right," I answered. "They are merely objects, my dear fellow. I don't see why I should do so. They can be broken; they can be replaced."

He looked to the corner where my violin leaned. "Even your Stradivarius?"

I eyed Watson severely. "Even the Stradivarius," I said.

He got up and made his way to the decanter. "You mean to say," he said, "that even in your youth you were never loath to part with things?"

"Hardly; I was used to not possessing them in the first place," I recalled. But better not dwell on the dead past, it is busy burying its dead.

Watson grew quiet, obviously wondering what could have deprived me of the simple joys of childhood. "How about now?" he asked. "Anything you are loath to part with?"

I tapped my pipe impulsively against the cold glass of the window to the cadence of Dvorak's String Quintet. No. 2, of course, for the first sounded rather dismal.

"Not a thing," I said, keeping rhythm. "I haven't a jot of these maudlin sentiments you speak of, Watson. I think that is your area entirely," I stopped and turned, pointing the pipe in his direction. I shall never be able wrap my mind around the Doctor's inclination for asking obtuse questions.

"So you have often said," Watson admitted, eyeing the arm of the settee with a stern gaze. He scratched his fingers over the upholstery. "Then you will understand that I have never really forgiven you."

I looked up in surprise and saw him staring at the cigarette between his fingers as though it were an ancient artifact. "Pray," said I, "what transgression of mine could possibly warrant you pardon?"

Watson got up from the settee and shook his head in disbelief. "You were absent at my wedding!" he exclaimed, deeply hurt. "I expressly requested you to be at my side, Holmes."

I shrugged, a useless attempt to deflect the stifling air that suddenly hung over the room. "And I expressly declined, and early enough to pull a cousin of yours in my place, too," I replied.

"Cousin Berney, yes, Holmes, well, thank God for that. I haven't even seen him before in all my life," he said. I did not expect him to be so affected by my refusal, after what he has done to me in the first place.

"And you have known me for scarce a year," I said, applying my logic to the matter, no matter how it pricked me at the side.

Watson stopped; he seemed to understand the irony of it all, but I could tell he was still cross. We have not yet reached the heart of the matter. "But seriously, Holmes," he said softly, with an underlying note of disappointment, "a telegram?"

Of course, I knew the subject would come up. My Watson could not let it pass, I shall be let down if he did, and so I have formulated my response to such a question. I put down my pipe, walked towards him and met his gaze directly with my own. "I am terribly sorry, my dear fellow," I said in hushed tones. "I had a case that took me from London that day. I was observing a gang involved in counterfeiting. It was a critical time for me and the Yard," I sank helplessly to the settee and placed an arm over my eyes. "We arrested them that day, and had we done it any sooner or later it would not have happened."

I felt a dip on the settee; I removed my arm in a start and saw that Watson sat beside me. I knew it would only be a fraction of a second before I become fully aware of his proximity; a full one before my heart would beat faster in anticipation of what I do not know precisely; another before I hear the question, "Do I dare? Do I dare disturb the universe?" (I always reply to the negative); another before I invariably notice the dark flecks in his eyes or other such nonsense; another before I remember that I needed breath to be alive; another before I smell Watson's rough scent too sharply; another before it causes any cohesive mental process to go awry; and in the final throes of my damaged psyche, I watch its towers crumble and erupt in an enormous cloud of pulverized passion.

It always takes a little over five seconds for John Watson to reduce me to a bubbling mess. It takes me another five to recover what has occurred in the interim, and to hope that I have not done anything as embarrassing as letting my jaw slack shamelessly or allowing my eyes to roll to the back of my head.

Watson, thankfully, had not noticed anything, as per usual. "Holmes," he said, "Why then did you not visit me to give notice?"

I sighed. Because, you ignorant boob, I could not bear to look at you knowing that you are promised to someone else while at the same time wanting to pull you by the hair and sodding you until your voice is hoarse with carnal frenzy. It shall confound me until the men in white come and drag me away to Bedlam.

I shifted slightly away from him. "Because, my dear fellow, I have not the time," I explained. "I thought a telegram would suffice."

"Hum, it should, shouldn't it?" Watson said with his head tilted to the side. "Tell me, Holmes, why is it you disapprove of my marriage."

I twitched in frustration and slight fear. The Doctor has found his aim, and he will pull the trigger and the bullet shall pass neatly through my heart. I am miserable, but I have no plans on dying so early. I stood up and ambled to the desk, pulling a small box in wrapping paper from the left-side drawer, and then I made my way to the low cabinet and procured a rectangular woodbox.

"You are entirely mistaken, Doctor," I said, taking my place beside him. "When I said I cannot congratulate you, you may have misapprehended my meaning."

"Pray, tell me what you truly meant," he asked, still sullen.

"I was merely surprised at the sudden turn of events," I clarified. "For one who does not feel the softer emotions, you see, your actions have appeared highly illogical, and that is why I said what I had said. After thinking upon the matter I realised that you could not possibly rein the dictates of your heart and it was not for me to decide upon anything," I cast my eyes down apologetically. "I suppose what I should have done as a true friend was to hold you to your word. I thought I could rectify that," I said, and handed him the boxes.

"What are these?" he asked, sliding the larger box open. It was an eighteen sixty Chateau Lafite claret from Medoc, not fairly known for their low-cost. I had it housed inside a decorative wine box, personalized with Watson and Mary's initials, made upon request by a brilliant but dubious craftsman at the East End who owed me a favor and was more than willing to return it.

"A small addition to the parlour," I replied.

Watson placed the wine down on the settee, and proceeded to open the smaller box. He pulled the item inside and placed it upon his palm.

"A watch?" He said. It was a new gold fusee pocket watch from Thomas and Co. at Liverpool.

"Plain cock, split balance, flat hairspring, the most beautiful gilt plates, there, and here," I said, pointing it to him, "a stylised gold hour and minute hand. You could lay your brother's watch to rest."

Watson ran his fingers over the crannies of the watch, examining it minutely. His smile made it clear that the article had more than met his approval. It was, after all, a superior watch. I even had the engraving made by Mr. Thomas himself.

He turned the watch to its back and looked up at me. "There's an engraving?" he asked.

Of course there's an engraving, you fool. I can't give you a thought now, can I? It would be most unnatural. Now, if I could slap it on the back of an expensive object, on the other hand, then it becomes an inoffensive token that you perhaps would appreciate. I smiled mysteriously at him, "Read it," I said.

"_Tempora mutantur_," he whispered, too softly that I can only read his lips. That was the engraving above, there was still another below it, done in a smaller script. "_Spero nos familiares mansuros_, SH," he continued, and for a moment he seemed to grow quiet, just running his thumb over the engraving repeatedly.

Stillness seemed to have taken over the both of us, him still looking down gravely at the watch as though it were a rock that weighed him down. I could not wrest my eyes away from it as well, but I looked at his hands and those fine digits that held the watch. My eyes traveled to his fine wrist, that subtle crook that bent so gently. I wanted to place my lips over those lines and trace the width until I rest upon his pulse. I will feel it throb beneath his skin, to behold the rush of blood within his arteries, the river that keeps the one I adore alive and breathing as his whole self does to me. I want to traverse its embankments and memorise its every twist and curve until I could describe it from memory. I wanted to know every single sensitive hair on his forearm, run my cheek upon them so lightly as to produce the most delicious shudder. I would touch and stroke the whole length of his flesh, repeatedly and with rising fervour until I am sick and shaking with desire and I have no other choice but to taste it.

The way it burnt, I am sure it would taste of fire.

I lifted my eyes and saw Watson looking at me with disgusting amicability, his wistful smile so simple and innocent that I swallowed the urge to wipe it off his face. I want to crush those lips, make them stop being so damnably naïve; I want to bruise them a little as a lesson, just so at the corner, so it would not be so annoyingly _perfect_. Then they would learn that they belonged only to my skin, in worship of my whole aching flesh, and seek nothing but.

"Yes," Watson said, looking intently at me. "Of course."

I must have looked confoundedly at him. "Hum?"

He grazed his hand over my own, which rested on my lap. "I meant we are still friends, despite these things," he muttered, looking pensively at the watch once more, and, as swift as a breeze, his touch was gone. My hand prickled sweetly in turn, the nerves beneath rushing which every way, not knowing what to do with a John Watson as well. Were I could help them, but I do not know what to do either.

"I am sorry I snapped at you, Holmes," he said. "It was uncalled for."

"No," I said, rubbing my hand furtively. "I needed it. There is nothing to apologize for."

Watson grew easy at my acceptance. "Well, that is rather unfortunate," he said. "I was planning to make it up to you in turn."

I stopped; he gave me that particular smile of his, that little twitch at the side when he is rather amused by something. Watson ran a hand over his hair. "I was wondering whether you would consider taking me along tomorrow to do the case," he said sheepishly.

There really is no appropriate response to a small surge of hope but to accept it in the cup of your hands, and make sure that nothing slips past. I could do nothing but nod silently.

"Is that a yes then?" he grinned, getting up from the settee. I looked at him as he towered over me.

"Yes," I croaked. "But I still must wait for Lestrade's telegram this evening. It will give us more information, but you may go to the station tomorrow at a quarter past ten in the morning and find me there. We leave by the ten-thirty train," I said.

Watson shrugged into his charcoal black coat and picked up his cane from beside the settee. I handed him the presents. "Thank you, Holmes," he said, with a gravity that made me know precisely what he was grateful for.

He shook me with a gloved hand by the door, "Goodbye Holmes," he said. "See you tomorrow." I waited and listened as his footsteps grew more and more distant until it was completely gone.

I returned to the sitting room, rushing about to get my own coat and hat and walking about the room extinguishing the gasjets until the room was enveloped in the fading light of the evening. I slipped my kid leather gloves on and checked my pocket watch. Five after six. Perfect.

It was my turn to make a visit.


	5. Chapter 1  part 5

The Diogenes Club is housed in an unassuming gray building between Whitcomb and Pall Mall, and home to the most unclubbable men in London. I found it to be an excellent space to work on my monograph on the different qualitative properties of the City's soil as well as my discourse on Machaut's isorhythmic motets, but I could not remain there for any prolonged period of time. There is a kind of suffocating silence that breeds in the place, and I have found the company so despicably homogeneous that I wind up in one alehouse or another, admiring cheap spirits and drinking in the variation, for if I were to place each person in that foul-smelling room in a mixed bag, as it were, I am sure I would not pick the same character twice.

Here inside the Club, however, it is the other way around: if I were to put these gents in another mixed bag, it would take me many trials to pull someone who did not sport the same dour expression, hold the same overbearing newspaper, and wear the same black garments required of the stiff British gentleman. My brother could possibly be an exception, but then he would weigh too much for me to be able to pick his enormous body out of the bag.

The doors open into a simple passageway that broadens into a hollow atrium. The curtains are a plain, almost austere, shade of blue; the carpeting of a slightly darker color. The waiting area is furnished with oak furniture, old and sturdy, with a small table situated at the center. A couple of men were on the sofa, while a stack of books were placed over the table close to them. A single thick volume was cracked open between the both of them, and they appeared to be in deep discussion about its contents.

A small crystal chandelier hung overhead, illuminated by gaslight, and filling the room with a gentle suffused glow. Directly below it was the rounded reception desk and Mr. Julian Eckert, a young clerk, bent over a thick logbook he was writing on with a rapid script.

I gave a rap on the wooden top, which brought his bespectacled eyes to me. "Mr. Holmes?" he said, setting down his logbook and shaking my hand. "Is it really you? Well, of course it is, but I just haven't seen you here at the Club for quite some time, sir. I suppose you are looking for your brother?" he said, twirling his pen nervously. "He's still some work keeping him at Whitehall, I'm afraid. It is unlikely he will be passing here at the Club today."

I removed my hat and set it down. "Hum," I said, looking around the area. "This place has slightly changed. They have changed the upholstery on those couches over there, ah, and those indoor plants, too, they were not there when I last visited," I paused, and looked him squarely in the eye, "and the receptionists weren't such terrible prevaricators. I am coming in, and do tell my brother not to ask other people to fib in his name, it is rather unscrupulous of him."

Eckert gave a jittery laugh, but I knew it to be of good humour. "Quite, sir," he said, taking the logbook and spreading it before me. "I am curious how you knew that I wasn't telling the truth, sir, but I figure it'd be better if I find it out for myself," he paused. "Now if you can just sign here—thank you—your brother's at his private room, you can go right in."

"Thank you, Eckert," I replied. "Good evening."

"Evening, too, Mr. Holmes."

I stood before Mycroft's room and looked at the slit of light below the door before knocking. Everything seemed quiet within, and I was about to lift my hand for another round of knuckle-banging when I saw a shadow pass under the door.

Mycroft opened the door, but his figure blocked the entrance. He looked me over as a rake would scratch over a patch of garden soil. "Oh, it's you," said he, with a measure of unhappy surprise. He threw the door open to accommodate me and waddled towards his high-back chaise. "I see that it's not an urgent or important case, or else you would have just sent your usual telegram whilst you hark to some back alley chasing down some criminal."

I made straight for his bottle of brandy, just so I could see the passing frown on his face. "It's not at all unusual, you know, for people of filial connection to be in each other's presence from time to time, if only to get in each other's nerves," I reasoned, sipping the drink and looking around for somewhere to sit. As always, there was none to be had. It was in keeping to the unsociable spirit of the Club, I gather. I found tied bundles of newspaper stacked neatly by the fireside; those would do. I bent my tall form over it, and wrapped an arm to my knees.

Mycroft continued to frown at me. "Yes I do, and yet we are not anyone," he countered. "Goodness knows you would rather be tied to a chair listening to Cousin Elliot, if you do remember him, do an ear-splitting rendition of '_La donna è mobile'_ than impose your presence upon me," he paused and drew a breath from his pipe. "You always have liked me the least in our family," said he.

I shook my head. "Bosh. You and your taste for drama, Mycroft," I replied.

Mycroft shuffed his papers about and rooted about in his right-hand drawer. "But then you didn't come to parade our petty differences, we've exhausted that matter years ago. Come now, what is it? Come to make some pecuniary request, have you? Might I remind you Sherlock, I am a mere employee of the British government, not the Bank of England," he warned.

"No, not money. You know I've been well-off since-"

"Since the good Dr. Watson has decided to become your de facto chronicler. Yes, hum," he mused, "Your coat proclaims as such."

I looked down at my black great coat and tugged at it self-consciously. "What is wrong with it?" I asked.

"Absolutely nothing, Sherlock, lad," he said, drumming his fingers over the desk. "Save that I know you to be so—unconcerned—with matters off dress, yes, why is that so? Why a new tailor? And a whole wardrobe? What necessitated this change? Mind you, it is most welcome. It was so unsightly seeing you crawl here from that shabby garret at—where was it—Montague Street wearing what could be qualified as rags."

"Nothing," I said, scowling. "Please don't waste your _limited _energy on pointless things, Mycroft; that is not why I came here."

"Point taken, petit frère. Alors?"

I stopped; were it true that I have simply forgotten what I was to say in the first place, I would have gladly accepted it, but my memory chose not to fail me at this moment."I-" said I in a stutter.

"You what?" he prodded. "Please don't try my patience, Sherlock. You do not want me to deduce it out of you. I could, but then that would be most ungentlemanly. Now, let us talk, like proper men, and out with it. Now, unless it is 'Mycroft, I am giving up my digs at Baker Street and am to stay with you at Pall Mall' I am sure whatever you are to say is not as terrible."

I looked down at the dark liquid in my glass, swirling it distractedly. "I seem-" I paused, attempting to figure out what to append to that phrase: _To have fallen in love with the doctor? To be an invert after all these years? To_ _have turned into a complete lunatic?_

"Seem what? Am I to get a word a minute at this rate? Are we to wait an hour to get a whole sentence out of you?"

I swallowed the last measure of brandy and felt the pleasurable burn run its course through my throat. "I seem to have fallen into a quandary," I rasped.

Mycroft eyed me narrowly, his steel gray irises glinting with the acumen concealed behind it. "Ah," he said, making a show of putting away his things. He bundled the loose paper together, pushing them within large envelopes. The fountain pens were capped and restored in a leather case then shoved into the bowels of his large drawer. He closed his auditing books and replaced them on a shelf overhead. As he subsided upon his chaise, Mycroft rang a small bell and a waspish man appeared at the door.

"Beckett, lad," said my brother, "would you please give notice to the Exchequer? Tell him I will have to defer today's dinner appointment."

The young man nodded. "Alright, sir. Any reason I should give him?"

"Tell him," said Mycroft, glancing at me, "that I have a most important matter to attend to."

When the door clicked shut, he turned his attention to me. It is completely unnatural, to have Mycroft's entire intellectual powers directed against oneself. The feeling is not different to being placed over a slide and observed under a high-powered lens beneath a microscope. Nothing is ever amiss.

A guttural sound came from Mycroft as he cleared his throat. "Is it a quandary involving _the natural question_?" he asked.

Of course, by natural question, Mycroft meant my 'reprehensible' proclivities. It is rather disappointing to say, but my family is not entirely unaware of it, the knowledge having been precipitated by an ignominious episode at the family stables in the distant days of my youth. My father had caught me _in flagrante delicto _at a position of considerable disgrace with the family groom's charming son. He consequently began to treat me with affection that he might show towards a cockroach; I took informal office as the family pest.

It was Mycroft who had always been tolerant of me, not only upon consideration of the natural question, but at all manners. He would steal my books on mineralogy and ask me to search for them, often hiding them in places that required some form of deduction to locate. My brother is, of course, seven years my senior, but he never was too old to be a worthy harasser in those days. He would often tease and pull my chair, hide father's favourite pipe and tell everyone I took it. The latter would precede the parlormaid dragging me physically up the stairs and bolting me inside the unlit store rooms, where everything was damp and cold. I spent most of my time within that dark room, lying on my back and pretending that I was enveloped in nothingness. My brother would always come up when everyone was occupied, often filching a slice of pie and a cup of tea from the cook at the kitchen below. Sometimes it was a piece of fruit, but he always came, always visited the wrongly imprisoned.

I rarely had nightmares when I was a child, often I floated in the dreamless potage of sleep, bobbing quietly in the thick miasma, which made the night terrors all the worse. Each time it was not my mother's name I called, but my brother's, and he would be at my bedside, holding a grim vigil over me. "Sleep now, little Sherlock," he would say, "Dreams aren't real." I would believe him, and slide quietly into a peaceful slumber.

At University I had a foolish liaison with a young barrister who had become too attached to our relationship. I had formed a friendship with Victor Trevor then, who was my only companion in those years. He became rather jealous of my intimacy with Victor, while I sought to sever my connection with him because of his overbearing presence in my life. I was cavalier in my manner and he became furious, threatening to tell the professors a destructive falsehood about Trevor and myself.

I could turn to no one, and in a fit of panic I ran to Mycroft, who was already established at Pall Mall. Mycroft sought the man in an exceptional fit of force and frankly bullied him into relenting; he, after all, was aspiring for a career in the Assizes.

I thanked Mycroft, but I was received with heavy reproach. He would do no such thing again, he said, and warned me against the dangers of my imprudence. I sought to clean up my act afterwards, adopted a habit that was positively ascetic and decided to become more like my brother, who was as amorous as a dry carpet. It had worked out rather well for me as the years passed, until that inauspicious day at St. Bart's, the moment that head appeared at the door, I saw everything I had worked for and aspired towards crumble into a useless pile of dust.

Knowledge is not a common prelude to sympathy, I myself had learned that lesson; I was merely lucky that Mycroft knew all, understood all and was kind enough not turn me to my heels and shove me with a well-scuffed boot.

"Sherlock," my brother interrupted, "is it-"

I placed both palms across my face in a vain attempt to block the confounded world from my sight. "Yes," I blustered, my voice muffled by the cup of my palm. I ran a hand over my mouth repeatedly and nodded silently, my head rocking back and forth. "Oh, Mycroft I-"

He held a hand up to stop the words. "Spare me the contrite speech, lad," said he. "I have no need of it and so do you." He clasped his hands together and reclined, the leather chaise groaning under the weight. "It's not another barrister now, is it?" he teased. "I ought to have you barred from the tribunals. Or," he bent his eyes towards the ceiling, mimicking deep thought, "is it one of those knaves you are always running after in the streets, or those jackanapes in the Scotland Yard that help you catch them?"

My brother had oft been told that he had the tact and sensitivity of a chunk of granite. Fortunately, so do I, but sadly to a lesser degree. The trait appears to display a diminution of proportion in succeeding births.

"No," I denied, getting up and pacing about his room, "none of those fools! I do detest myself for this voluntary deceit; it has to end. I cannot bear it any longer."

"Stop pulling your hair about, boy," he chastised, rapping his knuckles over the desk. "What is this deceit you are blathering about?"

Coming here could possibly be my best course of action or my worst mistake. I hoped there was a draught one could take for honesty, a medicine to be administered, before speaking to brother-confessors.

"I wander the length of this City," I began, and paused, "with this," I stretched my arms about my body. For once, I was unsure of the next step to take, but there was no way I could retract my words and get out of Diogenes Club with my organs intact. My brother was more than capable of ripping me in half, not necessarily in a physical manner. I put myself in this predicament, and God wot I had to see it through.

"I unravel crimes no other person could solve," I paused, "with this," I brought a forefinger at my left temple. "Each morning, without fail, I lie in my bed and I tell myself," I ventured to look at Mycroft and saw that he was as fixed as a lamp post, "I tell myself 'I am my own master'. I repeat it throughout the day, 'I am my own master', even if I know it to be blasted lie." I turned and drifted to the small window at the corner of the room, and my eyes caught a view of this complicated, old city, with its inhabitants tramping about, equally overwhelmed by reality, fiction and fact.

"Somewhere, at a street yonder," I said, my finger at the glass, "is the one to whom all this rightfully belongs. He arrives at home from his practice at six, sups, and retires at night, perhaps after scribbling a word or two and reading from a yellow-backed seafaring novel. Ere long I will have lain all at his feet, and they are none but his for the taking." The final words came out in a mutter, and I was not certain if Mycroft had heard it.

The room was wrapped in silence; I folded my arms about myself, and basked in the odd comfort it afforded. The frenetic rat inside my head had momentarily stopped scritch-scratching about, as though exhausted by my admission. There was a strange peace that overcame everything, and I breathed it slowly, feeling my chest swell and heave. If a confession in a moment of lunacy was all it took, I should have done so a long time ago.

"Sherlock," Mycroft broke in, his voice a deep, low rumble. I turned and saw him with a grave expression, "You are aware of the Doctor's marriage to-"

"To the inimitable Miss Morstan," I replied in a bout of sudden frustration, "paragon of women and detective's clients, yes, of course, you think me a fool?"

"Yes, I do," said my brother resolutely.

"On-on that aspect, me having fallen straight to-"

Mycroft raised a finger to stop me. "Now, my boy, enough of this blubbering nonsense," he said, his keen gaze aimed at me with all its weight, "I want you to answer me as honestly as that drug-addled brain of yours can," he paused. "Are you in love with the Doctor?"

"I—I do not know," I answered, looking at anywhere but my brother. "I am insane, that is what I am!"

"But you do feel an attraction towards his," he paused, as if unsure of what to say next, "physical aspect?"

I spun my head with a force that caused a crick in my neck. "Yes, yes I do!" I spat irritatedly, rubbing my palm against the back of my neck. "This line of question is most trying Mycroft."

"I am not the one who has rushed here for help, boy," said he, with the same grim expression on his face. "Now I am simply trying to understand your situation and so you must not begrudge me this inquiry." Mycroft shifted his seat away from the desk and knotted his fingers over his obtruding stomach. "What have you done so far?" he inquired, "To express your regard I mean."

The damn blighter! He is enjoying this rather much. "Absolutely nothing," I snarled, turning away and clamping a knuckle between my teeth, "save for banging my head on the bedpost every night."

"Good," he replied. "And the Doctor knows nothing?"

"If he did, then I wouldn't be here in the first place, Mycroft, this is shocking!"

"Then it should remain that way," Mycroft said.

I stopped and stood very still, curling my hands into a tight fist behind my back. Everything suddenly seemed quiet, and the only sound that reached my ears were the constant hiss of the gasjet and the crazed pounding of my heart that strained between my ribs. _Then it should remain that way_, I repeated, again and again, like a route of a tram inside my head. The damned would be singing that to me, I imagine, when Charon himself rows me through the river Styx, to consign me to an eternity of gaping behind newspapers and sighing hopelessly at reflections on silver plated coffee pots; I would rather throw myself off the white cliffs of Dover.

I faced Mycroft slowly. "I have come, a suppliant of your aid," I said between gritted teeth, "because I cannot keep it secret anymore, and you tell me the last thing I am willing to do," I ran my shaky hand over my face. "Have you no concern for my mental health?"

Mycroft lifted both his eyebrows, but his expression remained impassive. "None whatsoever," he said solemnly. "I, however, am concerned with the health of the Doctor's marriage."

I walked towards a part of the wall free of furniture and scaled my hand against the plaster, its texture coarse against my palm. "Yes, so I have found," I scoffed, bumping my head none too gently on the wall. "I've heard of your little stunt in helping Watson find a new place at Paddington," I paused, shutting my eyes firmly as I remained stooped against the wall. "I will say this only once, Mycroft," I warned. "The Doctor is my business and my concern alone."

Mycroft simpered at my threat, which did not surprise me; elder brothers are rather heartless that way. "Well, you have been making a good work of it, haven't you?" he said. "Failing to attend the Doctor's wedding, not even congratulating him in the least, being extremely uncooperative, withholding his property (Oh yes, dear boy, my last visit, the wool blanket, not yours), that one would naturally begin to doubt if you are truly his friend."

I banged my fist against the wall. "I _am_!" I cried, and followed in a whisper: "I am his friend."

Mycroft, who appeared to be impervious to my outburst, retained his expression of absolute stillness. "Now If you truly are, you will do what is right and stay out of his path," he said, lifting his weight from the high-back chaise and staring at me without a bit of humor to be traced from his features. "I could not care less if you are a fool, my boy," said he, recovering his auditing books from the shelf overhead, "just don't _act_ like one."

Mycroft opened one of the ledgers and began thumbing through them. "I have no desire to talk about caution and discretion," said he without looking up, "simply because I know that you are aware of each and every detail of it. I would only be wasting my breath. You are, after all, so adept at solving other people's problems; this could be a queer little game for you," he paused and said with a sardonic smile, "There is nothing like putting a life, a reputation, at stake, now, is there?"

I returned his smile with a dry one of my own. Mycroft had said the final word; any other addendum to the matter would only be met with a swift and harsh rebuttal, or worse, he would ignore it entirely. The experience is not entirely unlike butting one's head against the wall; it is equally useless and equally painful.

I put on my kid gloves on each hand, and turned to open the oak door. I had scarcely made a step when I heard Mycroft's voice break through the silence. "It might not look like it, Sherlock," he said softly, "but I do care about you."

I snorted at the bitter folly of the statement. "It certainly doesn't," I said, without turning to look at him, and I clicked the door shut behind me.

Outside, the night was chilly as ever, and I wrapped my coat closer about myself, but the cold only seeped in the minute crevices in the fabric. I was soon shaking to the bone, but I pressed on, walking the streets of Pall Mall, trapped within the ebb and flow in a sea of unrecognisable faces. I passed the lamp lighter, with his long stick, reaching up and leaving a luminous trail at his wake. I passed the Pall Mall scullery maids wrapped in their bare coats and frilly bonnets, hastening to do last-minute errands before the greengrocer closes down for the night. Behind grey walls and marbled porticos, people retire, believing their safety to rest on bolted doors and shuttered windows, when in truth it leans entirely on being in the company of the few people they trust.

I felt a sudden paroxysm of fear, colder and more frightful than the deepening night. There is nothing quite like being abandoned by the only other person you could trust in all the world.


	6. Chapter 2 part 1

**A/N: I'll be editing Chapter 1. Nothing major, just some tiny fixes, dialogue tags and clunky dialogue. Chapter 2 updates will be once a week.**

I stood at the station, bag in hand, hat on head. The day was rather cold, the sun was already past rising but it hid behind the clouds that hung low and heavy above the London sky. I brought a heavy coat with me, for if the City weather was cold, it was sure to be worse out in the country.

The station was packed to the edge with people that milled about to and fro, dragging about trunks, boxes and children. Some were already boarding the train, and the conductor was out, speaking to a befuddled old man who seems to have misplaced his ticket.

A whistle blew, and steam rose thick and white from the train. I checked my new pocket watch and saw the long hand veering towards six. I let out an impatient sigh and looked up, picking through the onrush of passengers for that single familiar face.

There are many things that one cannot help but notice when Sherlock Holmes appears. There are of course the obvious things: the tall stature, the aquiline nose, the jutting chin and the high forehead. There are the less obvious things: the splendid way he dresses, the slicked back hair that lends an air of strange nobility, the careless smile that makes you think otherwise, the way he tilts his head upwards and puckers his lips just so when an idea has crossed his mind, the way he lowers his head and looks up when I am being purposefully obtuse, the way he bites his lower lip when he is trying to keep from laughing. The last one never fails to make me shiver.

And then there are the things that you would never notice unless you—unless you know him quite well. That no matter what the weather, the moment you see Sherlock Holmes waving at you from the crowd you feel like it is sunshine in May, and you feel bizarrely proud. You feel as though you were dropped right smack on a scene in an Oscar Wilde play at Covent Garden, and he is the handsome lord who has come to visit, all squared shoulders, wit and graceful step, and you let him have the spotlight just because he is so wonderful to watch shining beneath it.

Holmes beamed at me infectiously. "Dear Watson," said he, shaking both my hands, "it gladdens me that you have made it. Do forgive me for making you wait. Truth is, I had a rather fitful sleep and woke up late." At the mention of lack of sleep, I immediately noticed his tired eyes, and the exhaustion behind his animated effervescence. Holmes also had a thick woolen scarf wrapped about his neck, the ends of which fell right at the middle of his coat. He was sufficiently buttoned up all the way down to his dark pinstriped trousers, and his hands were warmed within glossy leather gloves. The chequered cloth cap just fell to his temple, and he smoothed the creases until it fell just before his ears, adjusting it until he was comfortable.

"It is alright, Holmes," said I, tipping my head as assurance. "But we should board now. We could run over important matters on the way to Coventry."

"Yes, yes, of course," he replied, and we got on the train, bundling ourselves into a compartment in the second car. I sat beside him, our knees barely touching as the train jostled on the tracks.

"So what business kept you up all night?" I asked, curious as to what it was that occupied him so.

"Just the case, Watson, nothing different," said he, while an anxious expression passed over his face. He was right, it wasn't anything new; I had known about my friend's abrupt changes in behaviour when he is working on a case. All of a sudden he loses all appetite for food and need for rest, and he becomes not unlike a machine that runs on steam.

Once, I mentioned to him the fact that the body and the mind are inextricably linked, and the health of one is the health of the other, and the malnourishment of one becomes the weakness of the other. He merely scoffed at me, and I would not hear any of his counter diatribes that always involved appendices and the nonsensical notion that a man is nothing but his wits. Rather clever, but ultimately meaningless. His wit never made me do a second glance the moment he strides into a room. His wit never made my mind run in vicious circles whenever he hasn't. His wit never drove me to the edge of my senses, never pulled me away from him in a flash of dread, never drew me back to his side only a few days after. It was a point where he would never be correct, and one that I feared to put to rights, the reasons for which are equally valid and horrifying.

I could not possibly dwell on these things. Striving to think of something else, I recalled something about a telegram. "Was the Inspector able to send you more information?" I asked, leaning on the seat.

Holmes put up a forefinger and paused for a moment before digging into his pocket. "Here," he said, thrusting a piece of paper upon me between his gloved fingers. It was the size of a matchbox, and I unfolded it several times until the message was revealed:

Holmes (it said):

Paul Russell found dead in day room STOP Initial exam indicated blunt force trauma as COD STOP Body brought to mortuary STOP Avery Russell came down fr London a week ago to visit STOP Will be waiting at station to accompany you & Dr Watson FULL STOP

Lestrade

I folded the paper once more and returned it to Holmes. The case obviously involved murder and the motive and the party responsible still unknown. "Where exactly at Coventry do the Russells live?" I asked.

Holmes turned his gaze from the window, placing his gloves within the confines of the pocket of his coat. "At Windethorpe Heath," he said, clasping his long, thin fingers together. "The Russells have resided in that town for eight generations, and the people there look up to them."

"And this Avery fellow?"

"Avery Russell, Lord Russell's eldest son, and one-half of Russell and Stuart Steel Co. A saint, as Lestrade has so creatively titled the man, for while he is the rightful heir of their estate, he refused it. He has made a number of successful ventures and gives away almost half of it to charity."

"A philantrophist!"

"In the truest sense of the word," Holmes nodded. "Paul Russell, the second son, was to inherit everything. Their father has a passion for horse breeding, as I have found out. He is a major participant in races around Coventry, often hosting local derbies himself. His largest annual affair is set off by a ball at their Manor, attended by the noble and the affluent, where there is extensive dissimulation and the concealment of their forked tongues between cuspid teeth."

I huffed in disbelief. I was fairly familiar with Holmes's antipathy to anything leaning towards the social. "How do you know when you haven't even met them?" I challenged.

"Oh, Watson," he replied, fixing me with his knowing eye, "the privileged hardly occupy themselves with anything else." He shrugged and smiled at me patronizingly.

I brushed off Holmes's offhanded gesture, for it was much better that he was active and springing about than lying motionless like a piece of log over his settee for the rest of the day, even if it meant taking little jibes from him occasionally. All in a day's work, and that sort.

For it also used to disturb me, seeing that sort of lethargy come over him from time to time. Once, I came home early from the Club and found him reclined fully on the rug, staring at the ceiling with glassy eyes. His syringe seemed to be nowhere in sight; and he is usually awful at hiding it once the drug had taken its effect. Instead, he had a cigarette trapped between his fingers, the smoke swirling as a filmy haze that floated ever upwards. I posited myself close to him, the tips of my leather boots touching the crook of his elbow, and looked down. He seemed to be entirely uncognizant that I began to suspect catalepsia when he slowly lifted his arm and brought the cigarette between his lips, drawing a languid breath. The cigarette glowed red and burned slowly, and he moved it to the corner of his mouth and exhaled. I waved a hand over his face, but his eyelids merely flicked, the dark lashes fluttering slightly. His thin, pale lips were parted, and from within his tongue darted out and slid across; leaving a film of moisture that caused my knees to tremble. Damn, what business has he being so unconsciously licentious? I kicked him lightly twice at the elbow, and saw recognition pass between those ash gray eyes.

"Ah, Doctor," he whispered with a captivating turn of his lip, "So wonderful to see you. What are you doing hovering there?"

I sat back on my heels beside him. "I should be the one asking why you are lying on the rug," I said, "I thought you were in some catatonic state for you scarcely moved."

"Apologies for being a cause of worry, Doctor," said he contritely, placing a hand dramatically over his chest, "But no need to call the men in white. I was merely admiring our lovely ceiling."

I looked up at the wooden panels, and was thrown off when I felt a hand wrap across my wrist "Now, that is not the proper way," he pulled me down beside him, "you have to lie down to see the whole thing."

The hearth was close to our bodies, and the fire crackled merrily over the charred logs. I lay on my back, the rug rough against my clothes and skin. I looked up and swallowed nervously, "What am I supposed to see?" I asked.

"There," Holmes said, his hand still on my arm. "The map of England," he paused, "the Queen's profile," another pause, "a leaping hare, there, and way over the window, a bowler hat."

I squinted my eyes at the stains on the ceiling, but could not see a thing. They were nothing but random shapes, "I can't-" I began, but he interrupted me by running his hand down through my arm until his fingers were aligned over mine. Holmes drew his head close to mine until I felt the fine strands of his hair on my cheek. He lifted my hand together with his own and pointed at every area.

"The Queen is right there," he said, and with the tips of our forefingers he traced the outline of her face, the protrusion of her nose, the slope of the forehead, all the way up to her crown.

"Ha! It really is her," I said, smiling. I was seized with a convulsion that began from the pit of my stomach and bubbled upwards; I found myself laughing for it was just so absurd and amusing and his hand just felt so smooth and warm around mine. All my blood seemed to rush over to my head, and my mirth grew fainter until it died. Every nerve in my body was alit, and I drew a shaky breath for every inch that Holmes drew our hands nearer to ourselves. I could not wrest my gaze from the ceiling, but I saw him slowly turn his head until his nose brushed my cheek. And I could smell him, the smell of soap and water and aftershave and something that they must have in Paradise.

There are a hundred things wrong with me.

I snapped my eyes open and pulled my hand from his. "I must turn in, Holmes, good night," I said coldly, getting up and leaving him lying by himself on the rug. I strode to the safety of my bedroom and shut myself in, even though it was still early in the evening.

From then on, whenever I saw Holmes lying listlessly in the sitting room, I always sidestepped around him, taking care that he does not come to if I am within an arm's length from his sprawled form. I feared what might happen if I could not get up and away in time.

I feared how it might feel.

I felt a tap against my arm. "Watson?" Holmes said.

"Hum?"

"I will tell Lestrade to pass by the mortuary before we go to the Manor," said he. "There might be something we could glean from the body."

"Do you think-" I paused, "Do you think the inheritance could have something to do with Paul Russell's death?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not," he answered. "Thinking is dangerous at this point, Watson. We do not have all the facts yet. I personally did not even know that there was a second son. He should have been a grown man by now."

"Then what do we do?"

"For now," he said, untying his scarf and revealing his smooth neck, "absolutely nothing. We are empty baskets at this point. There is nothing to do except enjoy the passing view, and," he yawned, stretching his arms, "try to get a little rest." Holmes spread his scarf and with a sweep of his arm wrapped it about himself. He leaned on the back of the seat, and as he did the scarf slipped off his shoulders. I took it and tucked it securely behind him. "Thank you, Watson," he garbled, folding his arms beneath as his eyes slowly closed. He was fast asleep in a minute.

I turned my attention to the passing scenery, noting the abundance of foliage and the quaint country houses that scattered throughout. The clouds rose high and feathery at the horizon, in contrast to the low stratus ones in London. Sunlight passed through the window and it surrounded us in a yellow glow, removing the chill from our bones.


	7. Chapter 2 part 2

At the station, Lestrade stood waiting for us. "Mr. Holmes," he greeted. "Thank you for coming over. I see you've brought the Doctor with you." He shook my hand and led us to a brougham. "This'll take us to Windethorpe Heath, and when arrive there, we've a trap waiting for us," he explained. "Windethorpe is quite far from here."

"Inspector, I think it best if we pass by the mortuary first before going to the Manor," said Holmes, twisting his scarf about himself.

"Of course," said Lestrade, stepping into the brougham that waited for us outside the station. "I figured you'd want to see the body. Now, in you get, gentlemen, for we have no time to spare."

Holmes would not have us converse about the case until we had seen the body, so we spent the entire trip listening to Holmes lecture about the uniqueness of human dentition and its place in the medico-legal aspect of investigation. From there, he spoke at length on the social criticism of Moliere's later plays and the excellence of braised duck at a certain East End place with a name that he could not, for the life of him, recall.

Windethorpe Heath was a stretch of glade that went on for miles, dotted by trees here and there, with the occasional hilly protrusion. The vegetation grew dense, made up of mostly brushes and small trees that accrued around and beyond the low farmhouses. Buckthorn trees and dog roses grew in clumps. The villas were far from each other, separated by tracts of land where grass grew abundantly.

At the town, Lestrade took us to the local surgery. It was a low stone building with a sloping slate gray roof that stood between two old houses. The front was covered with green moss and lichens that flourished between the cracks and crevices. Lestrade led us into a small room and introduced us to a tall man with graying hair and a trimmed beard. He had rounded shoulders and an easy smile that gave him an air of meek geniality.

"Dr. Walter Irons," said Lestrade, "this is Mr. Holmes. He will be helping us in the investigation. This is his associate Dr. Watson."

"Ah, so you are the detective that Lady Russell was talking about. Welcome to Windethorpe Heath," said Irons, shaking hands with us both. He was smiling, but his red-rimmed eyes betrayed a solemn kind of grief.

"You are not just the Russells' family doctor," Holmes stated, noticing Irons' weary countenance.

"No," said he, running a hand over his face. "Indeed, I am not. Am I really that worse for wear?" He laughed weakly. "I was a good friend of the Russell family, especially of Paul Russell, for I had been watching over him ever since he was little boy."

"Watching over, hum," pondered Holmes loudly, "do you mean that he had been in need of sustained medical attention?"

Irons gave a small chuckle. "Oh no," he stressed, shaking his head exaggeratedly. "Yes, he was quite sickly in his youth, but as the years went by, his bouts of illness became less and less frequent. Before his—before his death, he was as hale as any young man could be. A bit scrawny, I gather, but nothing that couldn't be cured with a little sunlight and exercise," he paused. "It's his mother who is always up to her ears fretting about her son's 'ailing' health. She calls me up to check on him every week or so at the Manor."

Holmes gave a little nod. "How did Paul Russell feel about it?" he asked. "If he knows that he is quite well, then he did not need the ceaseless poking and prodding of a doctor."

I searched Irons' expression for any sign of offence, but he seemed to take it astride. "Indeed, sir, he didn't," he answered. "He was frequently sick in his childhood, yes, but he got better as the years went by. Paul seemed to do it just to be agreeable to her mother. Lady Russell can be a bit-" he stopped and made a gesture.

"Overbearing?" Holmes offered.

The Doctor smiled conspiratorially. "Precisely. He was a good son, and did what he could to keep himself out of her path. In his adolescence, when I have realised that there was nothing truly wrong with him anymore, I used our physical examinations to chat with him, find out what is going on, so to speak. It was a sad waste, is what I think. He should have spent his youth traveling, discovering the world, making friends," he paused and chortled before shaking his head in disappointment. "Instead he takes several degrees from Cambridge, moves back to the Manor with a stoop and spends all day in his room studying goodness knows what."

All four of us grew quiet, no doubt thinking about the poor young man's wasted life and wondering what made him such a recluse. Irons ambled over to his desk and plucked a ring of keys from within.

"If you don't mind, Doctor," Lestrade said, looking at my companion, "Mr. Holmes would like to see the body."

Dr. Irons beckoned us to come with him, and we were led from the consulting rooms and down a narrow, dimly-lit passageway. It was damp and musty-smelling where the stone has imbibed the smell of the earth. When we arrived at a wider corridor, we turned right and went straight for the door at the end of the hallway.

"We have our mortuary here at the back," said Irons, applying the lock to an old wooden door that opened to a room.

The mortuary was painted in pure white, with large windows that occupied half the height of the wall. They were kept open, perhaps to keep the area well-ventilated. The room was supported by two columns, also white. To the right was a double door that presumably led to the garden. Steel stretchers lined the walls, and all were unoccupied save for a single one at the left side of the room.

Against one of the columns stood a large wooden cabinet with glass panels, and inside were a number of forceps, retractors and sundry other surgical instruments kept clean. Beside each steel bed was a wooden table covered with white linen, and on the other, a washbasin with a drain that led to the pipes.

We walked to the only occupied stretcher and Irons nodded at Holmes's direction. My friend clutched the white cloth covering and pulled it back, revealing Paul Russell's dead body.

His corpse was pale, but perhaps no paler than when he was alive. His body was indeed reedy and slight, as Dr. Irons had said, and his skin stretched over his palpable ribs until it sloped to a dip over his stomach. He was apparently good-looking, albeit a little gaunt, with his hollowed cheeks and the protruding _arcus zygomaticus._ Blood and bits of skin matted his pale blonde hair at the side where the object that killed him made contact. A deep gash at his left temple tore his flesh, revealing the soft tissue inside. Dried blood coated the wound, and the blood ran down the side of his cheek where it abruptly stops and appeared as though it had been wiped off. Paul Russell's eyelids were closed, fringed by light-colored lashes. His mouth was parted slightly, and could not be closed for _rigor mortis_ had already set in.

Holmes seemed very interested with the wound, and with his kid gloves still on, he held Paul Russell's face and drew himself closer to it. "Has nothing been changed with the body?" said Holmes, inspecting the injury closely. "I meant besides removing the clothes, which you have foolishly done."

Lestrade coughed and shifted his eyes to me. "No, nothing. Except what you said."

"No washing, wiping, swabbing, sponging, scrubbing and cleaning of any form?"

"None, that's the way he was when they found him," said Lestrade. "We did remove the clothes, but we put them over there, if you want them." He pointed to a wooden chair where a pair of trousers, a dinner jacket, waistcoat and a dress shirt lay, neatly folded one on top of the other.

Holmes waved his hand in dismissal. "So who found the body first?" said he.

"One of the parlourmaids," Lestrade began. "He was already dead on the daybed when she found him. A groom rode hard to the St. Johns' villa to call for the Russells."

"What were they doing there?" said Holmes.

"There was a ball that evening," Dr. Irons answered.

"A derby ball?"

"No, those usually occur around September. This was just a regular ball that they get up to once in a while as some sort of leisurely diversion."

"And the St. Johns are who exactly?"

"Neighbours to the Russells," answered Irons, "if you could call a mile and a half a neighbourly distance."

"Hum. You were there at the ball as well," Holmes said to Irons. When he saw the Doctor nodded, he continued his deductive discourse, "and when the Russells heard of what happened to Paul, you were called too, as befits your position. What did you see, then, when they brought you to the parlour?"

"What you see now," Dr. Irons replied.

"A crude murder," said Holmes, still minutely examining the corpse. "Now, Doctor, if you don't mind telling me, which of the Russells were in attendance at that ball?" Holmes seemed to have migrated his attention to Paul Russell's arm.

Dr. Irons paused in recollection. "Well, except Lord Russell, who is in India, his wife was there with Avery, and—well, all of them were present."

Holmes was preoccupied with the corpse's fingers, touching each of them. He removed his kid gloves and rubbed Paul Russell's fingertips with a bare forefinger. He nodded to himself. "Even this reclusive young man?" he asked.

"Yes, Paul was there," said Dr. Irons. "His mother seemed to have bullied him into it. I wouldn't be surprised if she had to bind and wrap him in a dinner jacket and drag him by the ear to the ball. Lady Russell's need to get her son matched up with some young lady supersedes her concern for his health, I suppose."

Holmes looked around and turned to Dr. Irons. "I'm sorry," he said, "but have you a scalpel?"

Dr. Irons drew back in surprise. "What, are you going to cut him open? I assure you there is-"

"Settle down, man," said Holmes, hand raised. "I have no plans on doing so. The human anatomy, though fascinating, is too messy for my liking, with its viscera, entrails and such." His face twitched in disgust. "Not my field, I'm afraid, but hand me that scalpel all the same."

The doctor walked to the glass cabinet and brought back a scalpel. "Thank you," said Holmes, taking the instrument and using it to scrape the underside of Paul Russell's nails. "So, was there one?"

"Was there one what?" said Dr. Irons.

"A lady, a lady," Holmes said with an impatient look on his face. "Was there one that he was interested in? Anyone he was making love to at that time?"

"None that I am aware of. I asked him once, rather casually, at one of my examinations. He said he was too busy with his studies to ever bother. I never pursued the matter with him again, for I knew he would talk to me about it when he wanted to."

Holmes kept himself busy during Dr. Irons' account by scraping each fingernail and smearing the residue over his fingers. Then, he stared at the Paul Russell's hand. "Interesting," said he, "hum, it is not just his studies that kept his attention, wasn't it? Our friend here was also a very adept pianist."

Dr. Irons obviously knew about it, for he tipped his head in acknowledgment. "Yes, he spends most of his time writing compositions for the harpsichord. The process practically absorbs him, and he forgets to eat and sleep, banging away on his instrument and babbling about movements and cadences and such." Dr. Irons smiled pensively, looking at Paul's dead body. "He was an artist, certainly. As mad and strange as they get. But how did you know about it? I suppose someone told you?"

Holmes shook his head. "No," he said. "But how I know is not significant," he paused. "Paul Russell was also a violinist, wasn't he?"

All three of us looked at my friend with disbelief. "Yes, he was," said Dr. Irons with a raised eyebrow. "I have never seen him play, but I have seen the instrument in his room. He seldom played it, I suppose. Paul had mentioned in passing that he had lessons as a child."

"He played voraciously," Holmes said. "Almost as much as he plays the harpsichord, I think." He bobbed his head, satisfied with his deductions, and he left the lifeless arm on the stretcher. My friend drifted to the other side and occupied himself with Paul Russell's hair, running his fingers through it with a keen eye. From Holmes' mutters and nods, I knew that he had formed his own ideas about the young man's death.

Lestrade cleared his throat. "Anything you would be willing to share with us?" said he, hands thrust within his trouser pockets.

"Hum, no," said Holmes, replacing the cloth over the corpse and putting the scalpel on the side-table. "Nothing significant as of yet. I need more data! More facts!" he barked. "These are rudiments, which are good, but not enough."

Holmes walked over to the chair beside one of the columns and began fumbling with Paul Russell's clothes. He glanced at the trousers and flung it to the floor. He did the same to the white dress shirt, the waistcoat, the collar and there they lay on a heap at his feet. When he got to the dinner jacket, I was expecting it to be tossed like the others, but Holmes held onto it, and a wild gleam passed over his eyes. He bared his teeth, like a predator that had finally caught scent of its prey, and he clutched it, turning it around again and again and rooting at both inner and outer pockets. He examined the area around the collar, the back, and the sleeves. It was stained with mud at the back, but other than that there was nothing so special about it. Holmes, on the other hand, seemed to have discovered something important. He spun, looking over his baffled company, with his chin tilted upwards.

"I think we have acquired all the facts we could gather from here," said Holmes, tapping a finger over his lip. He turned to Dr. Irons. "Doctor, might I ask, has it rained in this area in the past three or so days?"

The doctor creased his brow. "It rained the day before the ball," he recollected. "But not since then. It has been quite colder than usual, too. Why do you ask?"

My friend smiled. Dr Irons' was casually attempting to wheedle information out of him. "A mere trifle," said my friend. "No need to concern yourself with it."

The doctor's gray eyebrows knotted, apparently disappointed at being put down like so. Holmes's expression retained its casual indifference, but as he followed the man with his eyes, I knew he had somehow relented.

"Now, Dr. Irons," said Holmes appeasingly, "I know you are truly concerned with bringing Paul Russell's murderer to justice. I will do everything in my powers, if that is what you need to know, but you must let me do things with my own methods." He paused and looked at me. "Dr. Watson here knows that I usually do not disclose my inferences until I am a hundred per-cent sure that they are all correct. I have many of them, I will admit, and it is reasonable that some of them would not fit the actual events. Now if I were to reveal each of them every step of the way, I assure you, it would generate nothing but more confusion. People not practiced in the science of deduction tend to be carried away by theories, as I have learned. I am merely exercising some caution."

Holmes's placating manner and his reassuring words have lifted the dour expression from the doctor's face. "Alright," said he, "but do not forget to inform me of your conclusions. I will count on it."

My friend nodded. "Yes, in fact, Inspector Lestrade will see to that himself," said he.

Lestrade was taken aback with the announcement. Holmes directed him with a piercing gaze and the Inspector shook his head, displeased at the additional task.

"Yes," said the Inspector with a slight edge of reluctance. "I will get back to you once we have sorted this whole matter out, Doctor. I promise that we shall find who did it."

Dr. Irons nodded at us grimly. "I know you will," said he. "Now I believe that the trap waiting outside is for the three of you."

I turned to the windows and saw the trap near the clump of birches, brought by someone from the Constabulary, most probably. We went out the garden door and said our good-byes to the Doctor, and I watched as his tall form vanished from the white room and into the dark hallway.

Our trip to the Russell Manor was uneventful halfway through. Lestrade was on the reins while Holmes and I were seated beside each other. The route enabled us to enjoy the lovely scenery, and it was so cheering to breathe the fresh air of the country. The bucolic din was certainly different from the noise of the City and certainly more agreeable. The branches of larches and alder trees spread widely at the left side of our path, and at the canopy the loud chirruping of several species of birds could be heard. At our right lay purely verdant pastures, with country houses standing remotely from each other. Farther still, several peaks of a single mountain formation extended across the horizon. The lovely pastoral scene diverted my thoughts, and the image of Paul Russell's cold, lifeless body was momentarily brushed from my mind.

Holmes, on the other hand, was already twitching with impatience. "Strong words you have used back at the surgery, Inspector," said he. "I have never seen you so eager to make promises."

"No stronger than yours," replied Lestrade, keeping his eyes on the dirt path.

"Oh, no. I said I was going to do what I can. There is a marked difference."

Lestrade turned momentarily to give my friend a sour look. "Oh, stuff it," he snapped. His eyes widened. Holmes was holding a dark dinner jacket. "Did you—Is that? What the deuce are you doing with Paul Russell's jacket? The poor sod is dead and you steal his clothes!"

Holmes pawed protectively over the offensive article. "I only borrowed it—and what does he need it for, hum?"

The Inspector shook his head in resignation. "You wouldn't have taken the jacket if you weren't onto something," said he. "Well come on, man, out with it. What about Paul Russell's jacket?"

Holmes turned to me, his gray eyes flashing. "Doctor, you have no doubt heard of Spiritualists conducting séances. What do they need to be able to connect with someone who has passed over to the afterlife?"

I thought about those gypsies who pass on the City's streets calling themselves mediums, but I could not see how that related to anything at hand. "I have heard that they usually request their clients to bring any valued possession of the deceased." I replied.

"Precisely," said Holmes. "So it is with them, so it is with us. Paul Russell will speak through this. This is the charm, the talisman that would point us to his murderer."

The Inspector scoffed and tightened his clutch at the reins. "Quit the twaddling, Holmes, I know you are merely trying to distract us," said Lestrade. "What have you deduced from the jacket? Tell us, or we will both toss you out of the trap."

Holmes laughed brazenly at the idea. "The Doctor wouldn't, for he is too fond of me," said my friend unabashedly, and he squeezed me with an arm. I looked away, for I wouldn't have him see me so flushed at the face, as I sure was. "And you wouldn't," he continued, turning to Lestrade, "because you simply need me."

"Yes, God help me," admitted Lestrade. "And right now I am considering selling my soul to the devil just to stop having to."

Holmes looked at him in chastisement. "Now, Lestrade," said Holmes, waving a gloved finger at him, "We all know what happens to Dr. Faust at the end." He paused. "Fine, as I am merely concerned about the welfare and eventual situation of your immortal soul, I will tell you what I know: this jacket, which you have so rebuked me for pilfering, is not Paul Russell's at all."

Lestrade gave a cry of excitement. He pulled at the reins with a start, and the horses bucked, almost throwing us out of the trap. I threw both arms on the seat rail and held on, tight as I could.

"Careful, Inspector!" Holmes exclaimed, gripping the dash board for balance.

Lestrade whistled and took control of the reins. The trap stabilised soon enough, and we were back to a steady pace. Holmes and I let go and settled ourselves on the box seat with care.

"Sorry about that, gents," said the Inspector. "You gave me a bit of a start, Mr. Holmes."

Holmes turned to me, eyebrow raised. "Quite an understatement," he whispered.

"But I took off that jacket myself!" Lestrade said. "If it's not Paul Russel's, then whose is it?"

Holmes did not answer immediately. "That is what we have to find out," said he, but Lestrade and I knew that he had much more than he was letting on.


	8. Chapter 2 part 3

Minutes passed and Windethorpe Manor finally came into view. It looked every bit an ancestral home. The edifice was made of stone, gray and imposing against the country landscape. English ivy crept and criss-crossed on the walls, lending a dark green color to the facade. A wide expanse of neatly-trimmed lawn sprawled at the very front, with ash trees lining a gravel path. Violets and marigolds bloomed magnificently at the side. No element was out of place; everything was trimmed, spruced and pruned to perfection.

A butler in tails stood waiting for us at the bend of the private road, and a groom took over the reins when we alighted the trap.

"Morning, Lestrade, gentlemen," the butler said, "Lady Russell is expecting you."

He led us into a finely furnished main hallway. Baroque sculptural reliefs lined the walls, while the polished marble floor shone with the reflected light from the bay windows and the crystal chandelier that hung overhead. An enormous stairway at the end of the hall led to the second level. It overlooked the floor below with ornate wooden balustrades and columns that stood a few feet apart from each other.

We were admitted to a private sitting room, covered by lush carpeting and enclosed by oak panels. A rotund, silver-blonde lady sat trembling on a midnight blue settee, and a young woman with a despondent expression had an arm around her. Beside them stood a man, sable-haired and well-dressed.

"Lady Russell," said the butler, and the grief-stricken lady raised her eyes. "The Inspector is here with Mr. Holmes."

"Ah, thank you Samuels," said Lady Russell. "Can you please send Avery here? He's in the study when I last saw him."

"Of course, ma'am."

The younger woman spoke, "I am so sorry, Lady Russell, about Paul. Please, if you ever need anything, do not hesitate to call on us." She stood up and rested a hand on the man's elbow.

Lady Russell patted the woman's hand. "Thank you, dear," she replied. "I shall be fine, don't worry. Avery is here, he will be taking care of matters. And Jack will be back here in two days once his business in India is sorted out."

The couple passed us, gave a curt nod, and went on their way.

Lady Russell beckoned us to come closer. "Please, gentlemen," said she in a tremulous voice.

We stepped towards her, and she pointed to the empty ladder-back chairs littered beside the daybed. "Sit," she said. "I only know Inspector Lestrade. Which one of you is Mr. Holmes?" She looked between the two of us.

"That would be me, Madame," Holmes said, tipping his head. "This is my friend and colleague Dr. Watson."

She placed her hands over her lap, fisting a silk handkerchief between them. "Francine, that is, Lady Martin's daughter, had told me about how you found her mother's diamond necklace. That is how I found out about you. I am, frankly, quite exhausted from my condolent and apologetic visitors. There is only so much sympathy that one can handle. I would rather grieve in my own way. I want the truth; I want to know who killed my Paulie, so I could make sure that blackguard would never see the light of day again."

"The Inspector and I will do our best," said Holmes. "But you must follow our orders and give us leave to speak to everyone in your household independently."

Lady Russell nodded quietly. "That could be done," she answered. "You can also have access to the rest of the house. Avery can show you to Paulie's room if you want to."

"Thank you," said Holmes.

A young man strode unannounced into the sitting room. He was Avery Russell, no doubt, for he bore a striking resemblance to his brother. There was the same pale blond hair, narrow nose and thin lips. He was slightly bulkier than Paul, but no taller. His cheeks were also fuller and his skin healthier. But where his brother's aspect was lanky and fragile, Avery was ruddy and active, with an ease in his own space that bordered on slight arrogance.

He looked at Lestrade and gave him a polite nod. "You wanted to speak to me, Mother?"

Lady Russell nodded. "Yes, dear," said she. "This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the detective I told you about."

"Ah, yes, of course." Avery smiled and shook hands with us. He moved with effortless grace that seemed to be the hallmark Russell charm.

"Avery will show you around. If you have any questions, you may ask him. Or Samuels, if he is around. He knows everyone who works in the Manor."

"Thank you, Lady Russell," said my friend. "We would like to proceed with the investigation now."

Lady Russell sat quietly for some moments. We remained standing, waiting for her to give us leave. Her son was about to speak for her, when she spoke, her voice a little above a whisper: "It is possible, isn't it, that Paulie's murderer could be here at home?"

From the darkness in her eyes, I knew she had the answer.

Holmes nodded. "It is a possibility," he admitted, and Lady Russell threw her arms around her son.

"There, Mother," said Avery, soothing her. "It will be alright."

"Oh my Paulie!" she cried. "Who could have done it? Who could have killed your brother?" She broke down in her son's arms.

"Nothing is definite yet, Lady Russell, until we have some evidence," said Holmes.

"What if it is someone we know? Someone we trust? I saw him at the daybed, practically bled to death! Inside our home!" She shook her head and buried her face on Avery's shoulder.

Avery only looked at us silently and nodded, bidding us leave. Lestrade and I stood up and we left Lady Russell and her son.

Lestrade took Holmes by the elbow at the hallway. "What are you planning?" said he. "Shall we go to the east wing? I've been to Paul Russell's room yesterday; can't find a damn thing."

"I don't think so," my friend replied. "Watson and I will talk to Samuels first. We could go about our separate ways and compare notes later this afternoon, perhaps? Good-bye Lestrade, and good luck."

When the Inspector shrugged and left, Holmes caught me by the arm and led me to the stairway. "We have to find Samuels. I think that should be our first move. He could tell us who owns the jacket. Have you got it?"

"Yes, right here," I said, lifting the muddied item on my arm. "Holmes, how do you know this jacket is not Paul Russell's?"

My friend stopped mid-step and fixed me with a look of disbelief. "Think, Watson!" he said. "The collar, the back of his head." He gesticulated wildly, but I still did not understand what he meant. "Never you mind," he said with a flick of his wrist.

. . .

A voice sounded through the hall. "Mr. Holmes, Doctor, a moment, if you please." We turned and came face to face with Lady Russell's son. He climbed the steps briskly and stood one step below us with a self-deprecating smile on his face. "I must apologise for my mother's outburst earlier. She is just overcome with my brother's death," he said.

Holmes put out his hand reassuringly. "There is no need for that, Mr. Russell. We understand completely."

Avery nodded. "Thank you," said he. "Well, gentlemen, if you have any questions—"

"Yes," my friend interjected. "In fact, we do. If we can trouble you for a few minutes of your time, it would be of great help to us."

"It is no trouble, I assure you," he said gently. "I think it's better if we talk in Father's study."

Avery Russell led us to one of the several corridors at the west wing. He opened a door and showed us inside. It was rich and comfortable, but not ornate, and the few decorations about the room pointed to a man with a singularity of purpose. A wooden horse reared permanently atop a small table, and trophies of silver and gold glinted with the reflected light from the gasjets. Bookcases lined the walls, filled with volume after volume of horse-breeding manuals.

It was, however, the mounted head of an elk above the fireplace which ran off with my attention. Avery must have caught on my interest, for he said, "That is Janus."

"Your father loves to hunt?"

Avery folded his arms. "You won't meet a man who detests it more. Janus was my grandfather's. Dad's tried to take him down several times." He walked over and stared the elk at the face. "Told him once that nothing would work short of blasting the wall."

"And what did your father say?"

"He told me he'd blast me off to hell."

"Oh."

I wondered at his curious statement. Even though it is unlikely that I will ever meet the fellow, Lord Russell struck me as a churlish man who endeared himself to no one, not even his sons. I looked at Holmes, but he only pointed to his wrist and signaled me to look.

Avery turned and sank abruptly on the chair behind his father's desk. "Well," he said, "you told me you have questions?"

Holmes spoke, "Dr. Irons told us that there was a ball going on at the time your brother was murdered."

"Yes," he replied. "It started around six in the evening. When the groom came for us, it must be about nine or ten." He played with a gold chain around his neck. "I'm not entirely sure."

"You did not notice that your brother went missing?"

Avery opened his mouth to speak, twice, but gave himself pause. "I know it sounds terrible, saying that I did not notice his absence. But if you knew my brother, well, he's not very sociable, not with our sort anyway." He leaned and clasped his hands over the desk. "Our mother drags him to these balls to meet people. He doesn't like it one bit, so he parades himself for a few minutes until he escapes her notice. Then off he goes," said he with a wave of his hand.

"To where?"

He shrugged. "Anywhere," he said. "Sometimes he'd be with the servants. Found him playing craps with the help once." He paused. "But he was with Samuels mostly."

"He knew your brother well?"

Avery smiled wanly. "Better than Mother did," he confessed.

Holmes paced about the room. "So you are saying that your brother was a congenial man who made friends with anyone—"

"Anyone lower than his station-"

"—And that no one had a reason to kill him—"

"Except Harrison," Avery said.

Holmes stopped. "Harrison? Who is Harrison?"

Avery shook his head and smiled all too widely. "A joke, Mr Holmes," he said. "Harrison—the horsemaster—always carries a pitchfork and glares at everyone." He paused and waved his hand in dismissal. "Just a silly joke the servants have."

"Peculiar humour you have around here," my friend remarked.

Avery's face twitched. "We're a grim lot, you can say." He stood. "But to answer your question: no, Paul did not have enemies; he never had the energy to make them. You have probably heard that my brother was a bit of a shut-in." He removed the chain about his neck. "We're complete opposites in that way." I caught a glimpse of a gold pendant that hung about the end of the chain. Avery dropped it in his palm and stuck it inside his trouser pocket.

My friend paced about with a smooth gait. "And yet you are alike."

Avery's eyes held amusement as he followed my friend with his gaze. "In what manner?"

"You are both capable of great sympathy." Holmes looked at him with complete frankness. "Everyone knows of your service to the London poor."

Avery laughed in embarrassment. "Oh, well, I don't know what to tell you—"

"Your humility precedes you, Mr. Russell. I see no shame in being a benefactor, especially to a city in dire need of it." He paused. "What I really want to know—and I hope you will not resent me for asking-is why you sold your half of the company before you left London. Not for charity, I suppose?"

"Ah, word spreads fast." Avery smiled. "You give me too little credit, Mr. Holmes, if you think I'll resent you for asking a fair question. And you give me too much, if you think I sold my company for charity. I fear the purpose was strictly a matter of business."

"You won't mind telling us the details?"

Avery sighed and thrust his hands within his pockets. "Only a couple of ventures in—um—Liverpool. Shipping and railways."

Holmes nodded. "You will make a good fortune, Mr. Russell. Luck, I am sure, will be on your side."

"Thank you." He smiled with uncanny friendliness. "Do you have further questions?"

"No, you have given us all we need to know," said my friend. "If you could tell us where we could find Samuels—"

"He's in the library, I think. The hall, second floor, last door to the right. Samuels is usually there before twelve." Avery paused. "I hope you gentlemen will join us for lunch."

"Thank you, but we intend to finish the case as soon as possible." Holmes turned to me. "We'll go to Samuels, but first I must send a wire—"

"If you have to send a telegram, I can do it for you," Avery offered all too quickly.

"You are too kind—"

"No, I insist. I'm about to send one as well." He raised a piece of paper and set it down. "I see no reason to keep you from your investigation." He pulled out a pen and a sheet of foolscap from the desk drawer.

Holmes came forward and scribbled a message. It took him some moments, but before I could inquire as to its contents he had already finished and folded the paper thrice. Holding it out to Avery, he said, "I'll be expecting a reply from London."

"Then I'll make sure it gets to you." Avery tucked the paper in his breastpocket and smiled. "Good day, gentlemen."

. . .

The second floor of the main hall held several rooms and a small stairwell. Paintings in their enormous gilded frames chewed up the walls. Vases overflowed with marigolds and lilies, and a wide rococo mirror bestowed the illusion of unnecessary spaciousness. Holmes and I walked straight to the last door on the right.

I took the opportunity to ask him what he thought about Avery Russell, but he only threw the question back to me. The man seemed to be of good intentions, I replied, and that his philanthropy marks him as a man of great probity. My answer drew a bark of derisive laughter from Holmes.

"My dear fellow," he said, "I should thank you for affording me a window to the pedestrian's mind. It makes you quite invaluable in my detective work."

"Well, that's rather new," I said dryly.

He glanced at me, chin raised. "I meant it in good spirit, Watson. I intend to say that your observations give me a fresh perspective."

Even his apologies sounded disdainful. "Fresh but erroneous," I said. "Alright, what were your observations?"

"Two, mainly. I told you to look at his cuffs. What did you see?"

I remembered it very well, for it was passing strange. "His cufflinks were mismatched. One was gold and square while the other one was a silver horseshoe."

"And what do you make of that?"

"I suppose it reflects on his personality in some way." I paused. "He's a careless man who gives little attention to his apparel. A careful man never pulls two different cufflinks and puts them on without a thought."

Holmes patted me on the back and swiftly withdrew his hand. "A perfectly reasonable inference," he said, "but I am inclined to think differently. Watson, have you ever heard of the Palamedes Club at Regent Street?"

I shook my head and said I have never heard of such a thing.

"Their members have a peculiar custom of wearing a horseshoe cufflink. Ah, here we are at the library—"

—

**A/N:** I'd like to thank all those who have reviewed the story so far! Arya May, Anon, Lua j, Slytherin et sa Ptite Voix, Penman Grenade, annabelleaurelius, Psychofan, qurota ayuni, Seoritaluna, Parhelia, anon (Any relation to Anon?) and youkodoll...I love you guys. Like a frickton. (To all reading this: see you guys next week! )


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